International Business Strategies, Decision‐making Theories, and Leadership Styles: An Integrated Framework

International management researchers have examined the relationships between many components of strategy including mode of entry (e.g., Anderson and Gatignon, 1986; Hill, Huang and Kim, 1990; Kim and Huang, 1992; Kogut and Singh, 1988), international collaboration (e.g., Bresser and Harl, 1986; Buckley and Casson, 1988; Contractor and Kundu, 1988; Osborn and Baughn, 1990; Parkhe, 1993), and global integration vs. local responsiveness (e.g., Athanassiou and Nigh, 1999; Prahalad and Doz, 1987; Roth and Morrison, 1990; Taggart, 1998), among other things. Other management scholars have written about decision‐making from multiple perspectives including bounded rationality (Simon, 1955) and speed (Eisenhardt, 1989; Nordtvedt, 2000). Another subject of interest to management scientists has been that of leadership and its influence on organizational performance (e.g., Petrullo & Bass, 1961; Stodgill, 1974; Burns, 1978; and Bass, 1985). Although these three dimensions of the management discipline (i.e., international strategies, decision‐making, and strategic leadership) are individually important to organizational success, they have not yet been collectively researched or conceptually reviewed to understand how the nature of their interaction affects the internationalization of the multinational corporation.