ABSTRACT
Building an international business is akin to building a house on shifting sand: It can be done but it requires resourcefulness and ingenuity in digging deeper to create a foundation from which to internationalize. The shifting complexities, uncertainties, and ambiguities of doing international business demand many skills and resources, including insight, imagination, courage, and specifi c knowledge. However, to date, the fi eld of international business (IB) has been bypassed by scholars writing on wisdom, and IB scholars have not yet explicity addressed what makes for wise IB practice. That wisdom has not entered IB research frames provides new theoretical and empirical opportunities. It seems that wise decisions made by successful IB practitioners is taken as a given, or it is not something to be understood and investigated, or it is not something on which guidance can be given to improve the competitiveness and sustainability of international businesses. Because it operates in a context where the features of the post-industrial economy and post-modern conditions are most challenging, international business is a highly complex amalgam of processes. It is a fi eld in which all of the business functions come together in an environment far more diverse than that in which fi rms do business in their home country.
