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This paper aims to contribute to the core research in international business (IB), namely, the relationship between multinationality and performance and is concerned with the quality of past empirical research designs.

On the basis of 49 studies, given in a literature review, the match between performance measures used in empirical studies and the underlying theoretical streams that explain the effects on benefits and costs of multinationality is critically evaluated.

Findings indicate that authors still largely rely on overall financial performance measures. Theoretical arguments, in contrast, refer to specific benefit and cost positions that might be better reflected in operational performance indicators. The idiosyncratic choice of the performance measures used might contribute to the varying results in past studies.

Suggestions for improving future research designs are offered.

The major part of studies in the field of strategic cognition focussed on strategy content, while process studies are comparatively rare. Those of the studies that are dedicated to explain strategy occurrence are dominantly restricted to formal decision making. In contrast to this, the purpose of this paper is to draw on a framework that helps to get a differentiated picture on contingent processes, strategies may pass through in organizations. Furthermore, an own elicitation procedure is introduced that enables to measure strategic cognition on different levels.

The paper provides an empirical approach by applying collective causal mapping techniques, both on an individual as well as collective level. The conceptual framework of the study rests on the “genesis” concept of strategy formation introduced by Kirsch and colleagues.

The main contribution of the paper is the presentation of a methodical approach to study the formation of shared strategic orientations in small companies. An operationalization to study these cognitive processes, based on collective causal mapping techniques is provided.

Applying the methodical approach presented in the paper is expected to make a contribution to the understanding of the shared knowledge of organizational members about major strengths and weaknesses of a new strategic reorientation and to contribute to practical concerns of organizational members in specific problematic situations, especially in small companies.

The study empirically approaches the complex phenomenon on strategy formation in small companies and therefore expands the understanding of shared cognition in organizations.