Tips for writing an impactful abstract
The key objective of writing a good abstract is to summarize the entire article - not just the conclusions - so that the abstract could stand alone and still be understood. JIBS has increased the word limit for abstracts in accepted papers from 100 to 200 words in order to allow authors enough room to adequately explain their papers.
As outlined in our Statement of Editorial Policy, JIBS publishes manuscripts that offer “insightful and innovative research on international business”. We would like you to convey the insightfulness and innovativeness of your article in a clear statement so that the reader understands the key points of your article and is motivated to read further.
As you write your abstract, please keep in mind the following questions:
What “insightful and innovative research on international business” does your manuscript contain? What is the central takeaway of your article? What important, useful, new or counterintuitive idea does it communicate?Why should a reader bother reading your article, especially one with a different background and/or one who will have to invest time in understanding a methodology with which they may not be familiar? Remember that JIBS readers come from a wide variety of intellectual disciplines, countries and cultures, brought together by a common interest in international business.Can your insights be applied in business today, and what value added will they provide? Is there a “real world” takeaway from your article?
The abstract should then concisely - but clearly - outline the paper’s:
- Purpose or primary objectives
- Theory and key hypotheses
- Research design/methodology/dataset/time period
- Key findings
- Implications
The following are examples of good abstracts:
The growing internationalization of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) raises issues for traditional theories of why firms go abroad. In these explanations (e.g., the OLI paradigm, the resource-based view) strong firm specific advantages are needed to overcome the costs of doing business abroad, including the liability of foreignness. SMEs, however, suffer from liabilities of newness and smallness, lacking the firm specific resources (financial, tangible and intangible) needed to compete in foreign markets. In our paper, we provide an alternative explanation for this conundrum. We argue that successful internationalizing SMEs have developed a different kind of resource - an international business competence (IBC) - that explains their success at internationalization. This IBC is based on intangible capabilities in four areas: international orientation, international marketing skills, international innovativeness and international market orientation. These four skills emerged from exploratory case studies with interviews of senior managers at 16 internationalized SMEs, and a follow-up survey of 354 managers and CEOs of successful SMEs. (157 words)
Little has been written about consumer perceptions of foreign products during an international crisis. Our paper investigates the concept of consumer animosity as applied to brands from a particular country; that is, products that suffer from a negative country-of-origin effect. We argue that consumer animosity has two characteristics: situational (episodic) and enduring (stable) animosity. External control and external attribution are psychological antecedents that strengthen situational animosity. To test these arguments, adult consumers from five Asian countries were surveyed during the Asian currency crisis about their animosity to Japanese and US products. The survey results provide evidence that both situational and enduring animosity can significantly and negatively affect brands from particular countries, making it difficult to sell these products in local markets. We conclude that firms may need to lessen country of origin impacts by localizing their brands (moving production onshore) or disassociating themselves from home country policies. (147 words)
