Purpose

During the past several decades, national distance (ND) increasingly became a vital cornerstone in international business (IB) research, as both explicit and implicit distance are parts of the essential reasons for IB activities. However, there are various and chaotic methods to measure ND in the last literature; therefore, this paper aims to suggest legitimate uses of ND in the IB field and the best ND dimensions for various situations.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper used a historical overview of the theoretical background and conceptual development of ND based on the past four decades worth of studies in leading 17-IB journals using Google Scholar. The authors also focus on multiform ND measurement methods and details through qualitative and quantitative analysis based on previous studies’ data collection.

Findings

This research summarized the common measurement methods and elements of different ND and proposed solutions based on a multifaceted analysis.

Originality/value

The micro analysis examines each type of ND in terms of the proportion of variables, issues, measurement methods, representative proxies beyond previous studies. This research also tried to provide clarity and suggest solutions to these problems through our macro& micro-analysis.

中文翻译：

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国家距离在国际商务中的作用：1980年至2017年的回顾

目的

在过去的几十年中，国家距离（ND）越来越成为国际商务（IB）研究的重要基石，因为显式和隐式距离都是IB活动的基本原因之一。但是，在最近的文献中，有多种测量ND的方法比较混乱。因此，本文旨在建议在IB领域合理使用ND，以及针对各种情况的最佳ND维度。

设计/方法/方法

本文基于过去40年使用Google学术搜索在领先的17-IB期刊中进行的有价值的研究，对ND的理论背景和概念发展进行了历史回顾。作者还根据以前的研究数据进行定性和定量分析，着重于多种形式的ND测量方法和细节。

发现

这项研究总结了不同ND的常见测量方法和要素，并在多方面分析的基础上提出了解决方案。

创意/价值

微观分析根据变量，问题，测量方法，代表性代表等方面的比例检查了每种类型的ND。这项研究还试图通过我们的宏观和微观分析为这些问题提供清晰度和建议解决方案。