Multilevel models in international business research: Broadening the scope for applications, and further reflection

In order to broaden the scope for the use of multilevel models (MLMs) in international business research, I review conditions and solutions for the estimation of MLMs where the dependent variable (criterion) is not continuous, but rather follows a binary, ordinal, multinomial, or count distribution. Several powerful and well-documented software packages allow the estimation of such models, although authors should be aware that guidelines for appropriate use of MLM are less well documented and that sample size requirements are generally more demanding.