This editorial introduces the literature on informal institutions and international business (IB) as well as the Special Issue. Informal institutions serve as the invisible threads that connect the fabric of social groupings, making them a critical element in the study of IB, but also especially challenging to capture both theoretically and empirically. As a result, there has been limited work on the topic, a lack of clarity on how to conceptualize and measure informal institutions, and a limited understanding of the role they play in IB. This editorial and Special Issue seek to address these gaps. Specifically, this editorial teases out the definitions of institutions, formal institutions, and informal institutions, and clarifies how they differ from organizations and culture. It then reviews the literature on the three main institutional traditions, explaining for each the role of informal institutions, and connecting them to the IB literature and Special Issue articles. Finally, it identifies gaps and proposes a future research agenda. The goal is to stimulate the academic conversation on the topic by showing how informal institutions are essential in studying international business.

这篇社论介绍了关于非正式机构和国际商务 (IB) 的文献以及特刊。非正式制度是连接社会群体结构的隐形线，使其成为国际文凭研究的关键要素，但在理论和经验上也特别具有挑战性。因此，关于该主题的工作有限，对如何概念化和衡量非正式机构缺乏明确性，以及对它们在 IB 中发挥的作用的理解有限。本社论和特刊旨在解决这些差距。具体来说，这篇社论梳理了制度、正式制度和非正式制度的定义，并阐明了它们与组织和文化的区别。然后，它回顾了关于三种主要制度传统的文献，解释了非正式制度的每一种作用，并将它们与 IB 文献和特刊文章联系起来。最后，它确定了差距并提出了未来的研究议程。目的是通过展示非正式机构在研究国际商务中的重要性来激发关于该主题的学术对话。