The field of international business (IB) has been successful in developing a unique body of knowledge on the multinational corporation and on country-level contexts. A recurring debate concerns its claim to uniqueness, and to associated scholarly characteristics that distinguish IB from other fields of research. I discuss what makes IB research unique by looking at what IB theory can explain and predict. To that end, I leverage key theoretical arguments and empirical insights to advance an understanding of IB centered around a firm’s ability to create added value in more than one location. I introduce a stylized model of the multi-locational firm embedded in multiple business systems characterized by equifinality. As a result of the qualitative disjunctures that separate one place from another, multi-locational firms are confronted with additional managerial and organizational challenges. These challenges are rooted in the process of “othering”. Theorizing on the critical constructs of place, space, and organization, I argue that IB offers the most generalizable approach to understanding firms doing business in more than one location. IB’s ultimate uniqueness lies in the potential of advancing a general theory of the firm in space.

国际商务 (IB) 领域已经成功地开发了关于跨国公司和国家层面背景的独特知识体系。一个反复出现的争论涉及它对独特性的主张，以及将 IB 与其他研究领域区分开来的相关学术特征。我通过查看 IB 理论可以解释和预测的内容来讨论 IB 研究的独特之处。为此，我利用关键的理论论据和实证见解来推进对以公司在多个地点创造附加值的能力为中心的 IB 的理解。我介绍了一个嵌入多个业务系统的多地点公司的程式化模型，该系统具有相同的特点。由于将一个地方与另一个地方分开的质的断层，多地点公司面临着额外的管理和组织挑战。这些挑战植根于“他者化”的过程。对地点、空间和组织的关键结构进行理论化，我认为 IB 提供了最普遍的方法来理解在多个地点开展业务的公司。IB 的最终独特性在于它有可能推进空间公司的一般理论。