TEMPUS FUGIT: A Hermeneutic Approach to the Internationalisation Process

: Leila Hurmerinta, Eriikka Paavilainen-Mäntymäki, Mélanie E. Hassett

Publisher: Springer

: 2016

: Management International Review

: MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

: MANAGE INT REV

: 56

: 6

: 805

: 825

: 21

: 0938-8249

: 1861-8901

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-016-0303-x(external)

This article focuses on a somewhat neglected topic in international business (IB), namely how we conceptualise time. Time is critical to many IB research areas, especially the internationalisation process. Yet the way we conceive time is all too often taken for granted, even though it has wide ramifications for the theories we develop. In this paper, we turn to the literature on the philosophy of time in order to enrich our understanding of the concept, contrasting what we term the 'Newtonian' and the 'hermeneutic' perspectives on time. We analyse the treatment of time in the two most popular internationalisation models: the I and U Models. We also offer a hermeneutic basis for understanding internationalisation processes. Our contribution lies not only in making the case as to how philosophical debates are relevant to our conceptualisation of time, but also in proposing a hermeneutical approach to theorising about internationalisation processes.