Context in International Business: A Structural Theory of Contextual Topology

Understanding why theoretical mechanisms operate differently across institutional contexts remains a

central challenge in international business (IB) scholarship. Existing approaches, anchored in the

distance paradigm, conflate structurally distinct contextual properties whose implications for

mechanism operation differ in kind rather than degree. The quasi-replication agenda lacks a coherent

framework for selecting replication contexts and interpreting cross-context variation in findings. We

advance a structural theory of context built on adaptive landscape theory, identifying three topological dimensions that jointly determine which strategic mechanisms a given setting enables or suppresses: informational topology (feedback clarity), distributional topology (resource dispersion), and interaction topology (interdependence architecture). Interaction topology captures the architecture of interdependence among actors. Drawing on configurational logic, we derive four contextual regimes as ideal-type configurations that generate qualitatively distinct competitive environments. We develop propositions linking topological properties to mechanism sensitivity, cross-context commensurability, and endogenous regime transitions, and translate these claims into a five-step research design framework. We establish that contexts are structurally commensurable when they share topological properties, providing theoretical foundation for treating generalization as a design principle for cumulative research.