A Measure of Comparative Institutional Distance

Three varieties of institutionalism currently dominate International Business studies: new institutional economics, new organizational institutionalism, and comparative historical institutionalism. Yet currently applied measures of institutional country distance predominantly build on the thought of the first two strands of institutionalism. This paper sets out to address this underrepresentation of comparative historical institutional thought in currently available measures of institutional distance. Building on Whitley’s business systems framework, a measure of institutional distance is developed and validated which captures intrinsic, substantive institutional differences in economic organization, rather than differences in institutional effectiveness. The results of the two-stage cluster analysis used to validate the selected indicators closely approximate the business systems typology, which is both indicative of the validity of this measure and of the distinctiveness of the business system types that make up the business system framework.