Going subnational: A literature review and research agenda

For a long time most international business researchers assumed homogeneity within national borders. More and more, international strategy is being considered at the subnational level. We review the current state of the literature that adopts this more fine-grained, subnational geographic level of analysis as well as studies combining multiple levels of geographic analysis. We consider the notion of the subnational region and provide an overview of regional grouping schemes applied in research. Our integrative framework shows how in the subnational context (1) firm, industry and environmental characteristics, (2) influence strategy, location choice and entry mode, and (3) the eventual consequences of firm decision-making. We synthesize prior work, address unresolved issues, and provide recommendations for future research advancing research on different geographic levels of analysis.