The RBV in International Business Studies: A bibliometric study of Barney?s (1991) contribution to the field

Jay Barney?s contribution to the current status of the Resource-Based View (RBV) is well accepted, in particular his 1991 article on ?Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage? has been acknowledged as one of the most significant contributions to developing the RBV. The RBV has since evolved to become one of the central theoretical perspectives in international business studies and research, and several other business disciplines. In this paper we examine the impact of Barney?s (1991) work on firms? resources for International Business research over the past twenty years. Methodologically we do a bibliometric study of the articles published in the leading IB journal - Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS), from 1991 to 2010, examining citations, co-citations, networks of co-authorship and major themes. Our analyses show that the RBV has been having an important impact on the majority of IB research themes.