Abstract
The concepts of sustainability and opportunity arguably are not intuitively put together - however this paper argues for the potential of reflexivity on the positionality of the researcher to provide opportunities for more sustainable and impactful research outcomes that are based on a recognition of the researcher’s positionality and location within the research in relation to those 'being researched'.
Discussions of the relevance of reflexivity and positionality in IB are still very rare and yet the context in which IB researchers work demands that the researcher is reflective of contexts such as varying national, spatial, temporal, and cultural boundaries that may relate to how participants in the research make sense of the researcher and the researchers’ questions.
This paper proceeds by first introducing the significance of reflexivity and positionality in business and management research and specifically addressing the significance in an international business context.
The paper then examines how reflexivity can be achieved and demonstrated in IB research.
The paper draws on an empirical study of one of the authors to highlight the ways in which reflexivity and positionality can be implemented in research and concludes with a discussion of the sustainable opportunity of researcher reflexivity in IB research.