Empirical Research Concept and Data Base of our Swiss Study

The empirical part of our study follows an even more modest approach than that followed in the previous theoretical and conceptual chapters. In our modern age of statistical sophistication and ready-made data-bases, empirical research has become even more routine than theory building. The weakness of theory in the field of international entrepreneurial operations is not only a consequence of the high degree of complexity and the rigidity of dogmatic-axiomatic model structures. Probably the most important impass to research is the almost total lack of data, or simply, of information. Modern technologies of computation and “informatics” have taught us how to build, service, and use existing data. But they remain more or less mute when confronted with the task of generating information, especially of generating from scratch data on new phenomena.