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Volume 25 celebrates the 25th year of publication for the American Journal of Business (AJB). Launched by eight MAC schools of business in March 1986, the Journal has featured more than 700 authors who have contributed more than 330 research articles at the intersection of theory and practice. From accounting to marketing, management to finance, the Journal prominently covers the breadth of the business disciplines as a general business outlet intended for both practitioners and academics. As the Journal reaches out beyond the MAC in sponsorship, authorship, and readership, we assess the Journal’s first quarter century of impact.

This paper contributes to the international business lit‐erature by exploring the degree of globalization in our international business journals. Through an investigation of all multi‐authored articles in core international business journals over a five‐year period, we test the nature of international business authorship by following Rugman’s insights on the regional nature of the MNE. Our findings suggest that within the Triad regions of North America and Western Europe, and similar to MNE patterns and international commerce, international business research is not global. In contrast, within the Triad region of Developed Asia, we find that international business research is global.

Enterprises in developed and developing world environments often begin life in the informal sector operating outside the purview of government oversight. Sectoral firm change, however, from the informal to the formal sector is not well studied. The purpose of this paper is to answer the following research question: “What firm-level markers help explain the movement of firms from the informal to the formal sector?”

Data from 719 urban formal enterprises included in the 2016 El Salvador Enterprise Survey undertaken by the World Bank forms the basis of the empirical analyses. The survey questionnaire comprehensively encompasses business practices and performance and the overall business environment.

Multivariate results reveal location, firm maturity, problems with land acquisition, a line of credit or active business loan, extortion by street gangs and practices of informal competitors increase the odds of informal firms becoming formal enterprises. Lessening the odds of once informal firms moving to the formal sector include the lack of access to public utilities, visitation by tax officials, formation as a corporation, bank accounts, number of employees and time spent focused upon government regulations.

Contextualized within the national setting of El Salvador, the integration of informal enterprises into the formal economy and related public policy implications of informal firm regularization are discussed.

Las empresas de países desarrollados y en desarrollo a menudo comienzan su vida en el sector informal y que opera fuera del ámbito de la supervisión gubernamental. Sin embargo, el cambio de empresas sectoriales, desde el sector informal al formal, no está bien estudiado. Este artículo busca responder la siguiente pregunta de investigación: “¿Qué marcadores de nivel de empresa ayudan a explicar el movimiento de las empresas del sector informal al formal?”

Los datos de 719 empresas formales urbanas incluidas en la encuesta de empresas de El Salvador de 2016 realizada por el Banco Mundial constituyen la base de los análisis empíricos. El cuestionario de la encuesta abarca de manera integral las prácticas y el rendimiento empresarial y el entorno empresarial general.

Los resultados multivariables revelan la ubicación, la madurez de la empresa, los problemas con la adquisición de tierras, una línea de crédito o un préstamo comercial activo, la extorsión por parte de pandillas callejeras y las prácticas de competidores informales aumentan las probabilidades de que las empresas informales se conviertan en empresas formales. Disminuir las probabilidades de que una vez las firmas informales se muden al sector formal incluyen la falta de acceso a los servicios públicos, las visitas de los funcionarios tributarios, la formación como corporación, las cuentas bancarias, el número de empleados y el tiempo dedicado a las regulaciones gubernamentales.

En el contexto nacional de El Salvador, se analiza la integración de empresas informales en la economía formal y se discuten las implicaciones de las políticas públicas relacionadas con la regularización de empresas informales.

The purpose of the paper is to shed light on Latino informal immigrant entrepreneurs within a specific border zone in South Texas. Three research questions inform this study: What is the demographic profile of the Latino informal immigrant entrepreneur? What is the occupational profile of the Latino informal immigrant entrepreneur? What is the business profile of the Latino informal immigrant entrepreneur?

In total, 198 Latino informal entrepreneurs in South Texas were interviewed, through a purposive sampling design, between 2005 and 2008.

The major findings establish a benchmark for Latino informal immigrant entrepreneurs.

The value of the research is the provision of empirical insights into an otherwise understudied population.

This paper aims to provide a more inclusive perspective on corporate greenwashing. Major ideas from impression management and transaction cost theory (TCT) helped in evaluating the likelihood of greenwashing within the Chinese context.

The sample consists of 184 Chinese public companies – 104 participating and 80 not participating in China’s green watch (GW) program. Using logistic regression, the analysis illustrates the importance of impression management and TCT as indicators of GW participation.

GW participation reduced the likelihood of GW firms joining substantive codes of conduct outside the GW program, indicating an important role of impression management and power relationships; a higher level of firm risk is associated with greater GW participation, signaling a higher level of risk tolerance; and higher levels of asset intensity increase the likelihood of GW participation, indicating a TCT connection.

These findings present a strong case for going beyond greenwashing and further exploring the organizations’ multiple motives for sustainability. They “force” the authors to study impression management and greenwashing from a more “human” perspective.

Besides establishing sustainability legitimacy, substantive codes of conduct enhance a firm’s ability to attract capital – impression management behavior falls within the rules of the game to achieve legitimacy and competitive advantage.

This paper provides a complementary explanation for firms engaging in sustainability acts, beyond that offered by the greenwashing concept. It is demonstrated that firms do not necessarily desire to deceive others, but to realistically impress and influence them, most likely in pursuit of corporate objectives.

This study aims to explore “what impact does competition from informal enterprises have on formal firms” within the Chinese economic and business environment.

The paper opted for an exploratory study utilizing the cross-sectional survey data “2012 China Enterprise Survey” conducted by the World Bank. The survey is composed of approximately 200 business-related questions across the spectrum of business operations. In all, 2,700 privately owned Chinese firms are included in the logistic regression analysis.

Results show the impact of informal firm competition upon formal firms in China are influenced by geographical location, industry sector, ownership profile, governmental ownership, online presence and the extent of obeying labor regulations or the time spent in handling the governmental regulatory environment. There is a competitive and complementary simultaneous intertwined relationship between formal and informal economy. It occurs in a formal economy not fully divorced from the structural inertia of the planned economy as it transitions to a market-based economy.

This paper extended the assumption of institutional theory and presented it as a dynamic view of the evolution of organizations. It contributes by offering a simultaneous dual relationship between the formal and informal economy. It also adds one more potential feature of populations in the population ecology theory.

This exploratory paper empirically examines the impacts of informal sector enterprises on formal sectors firms in China and proposes a dual force effect of the informal economy to the formal economy given the current Chinese institutional environment. The study also provides a platform for further research on the interactions between the formal and informal sectors in emerging markets.

This paper investigates currency substitution along the U.S.‐Canada border with specific reference to the use of the Canadian dollar in the United States. In our study sites of Bellingham, WA; Buffalo, NY; Burlington, VT; Houlton, ME; Minot, ND; Port Huron, MI; and Sault Ste. Marie, MI, we found that 70.1 percent of 364 sampled U.S. located retail establishments accepted the Canadian dollar during the study period of July 2003. Accepting firms did so at an average premium of 7.7 percent per transaction with a concomitant average increase in stores sales of 3.0 percent. The significant variables at the firm‐level in the decision to accept/reject the Canadian dollar are firm experience in the community; ownership model (local, regional, national or international); geographic location; cross‐border operations; and retail category.

Texas, like more than a dozen other states, offers an annual sales tax holiday. At the state legislative level, the Texas sales tax holiday is intended to provide tax relief to working families timed to coincide with back‐to‐school purchases and to give a boost to brick‐and‐mortar retailers. Focusing on the consumer, this paper presents the results of a 2004 mall‐intercept survey of 710 shoppers concerning the Texas State tax holiday and finds: 1) the holiday is not only incredibly popular, but also very important to the decision to shop; 2) the tax holiday is most important to consumers with household incomes between $10,000 and $40,000 and purchase intentions between $100 and $750; and 3) the customers most motivated by the sales tax holiday to shop assign less importance to product price and more importance to mall location in their shopping decision.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the polarizing subject of immigration, from a business/economics perspective.

The paper adds to the theoretical discussion the concept of “liability of localness”; a concept associated with the negative repercussions suffered by indigenous firms, after a regional free trade agreement takes place.

The paper answers why despite the suggested net economic gains brought by immigrants, there is still a big negative sentiment regarding the issue of immigration. It is proposed that regional trade agreements force labor reallocation, and in so doing, negatively affect the unskilled labor force.

This paper does not consider other academic disciplines to explain the problem, as it would be beyond the scope and aim of this journal.

The advanced proposition suggests the need to have mechanisms in place to mitigate the negative consequences brought about by reallocation pressures (suffered mostly by unskilled labor).

This paper has social/policy applicability as it deals with the negative effect brought to local communities by foreign communities (at time 2), who lost their way of life (at time 1) after the implementation of a free trade agreement (at time 0).

In general, the negative consequences brought by free trade agreements do not garner the attention they deserve. By advancing the liability of localness concept into the immigration topic, this paper provides theoretical insights about the negative consequences originated by free trade agreements.