International Marketing Review – Volume 36(2), 239 – 259
The increased international propensity of serial entrepreneurs demonstrating ambidextrous strategic agility: A precursor to international marketing agility
Yancy Vaillant, Esteban Lafuente
The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether business owners that simultaneously demonstrate past entrepreneurial experience and process agility have greater export propensity levels. The proposed hypotheses are tested using binary choice models relating past entrepreneurial experience and reported process agility on a unique sample of 246 Catalan business owners for the year 2010. Consistent with the theoretical arguments on the relevance of generative-based cognitive agility, the results of this paper reveal that serial entrepreneurs demonstrate a greater export propensity. Additionally, the authors found that serial entrepreneurs who also demonstrate process agility show superior export propensity levels, compared to the group of business owners outside this ambidextrous group (first-time business owners without process agility).
International Marketing Review – Volume 36(2), 260 – 288
From fragile to agile: Marketing as a key driver of entrepreneurial internationalization
Birgit Hagen, Antonella Zucchella, Pervez Nasim Ghauri
The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize strategic agility in entrepreneurial internationalization and highlight the role of marketing “under particular conditions” – those of early and fast internationalizers. The study is based on in-depth case studies of four entrepreneurial internationalizers using an inductive approach. The role of marketing is studied along a set of four key business processes, i.e. sensing through selective customer/partner intimacy; business development through selective experimentation and testing; coordination and harmonization of multiple stakeholders; and creative extension of resources. Strategic agility is a composite of flexibility and selective responsiveness. Marketing thought, mainly through customer and partner interaction, plays a prominent role in achieving strategic agility. Customer- and market-centric thinking needs to be built in a key set of business processes. Marketing’s contribution to strategic agility means an ability to cope with time, relationship and functional dependencies. Strategic agility helps improve the risk profile of the entrepreneurial internationalizer. Entrepreneurial internationalizers are particularly suited to compete on and benefit from strategic agility.
International Business Review – Volume 28(4), 802-810
Cultural entrepreneurship and legitimate distinctiveness in international prosocial crowdfunding
Vivien E. Jancenelle, Rajshekhar (Raj) G. Javalgi, Erin Cavusgil
Prosocial crowdfunding is a recent international business phenomenon which allows entrepreneurs from emerging nations to post microloan requests online for fundraising. While the crowdfunding topic has attracted much academic interest in recent years, little is known about the effect of cultural differences on crowdfunding dynamics. This study draws on the cultural entrepreneurship literature to assess whether a borrower’s cultural alignment with his or her own country increases or decreases funding speed. We investigate whether prosocial lenders reward borrower profiles that cue cultural distinctiveness through a Computer-Aided-Text-Analysis (CATA) of 127,597 profile loan descriptions and observations nested within 37 countries. It is found that cultural alignment on two dimensions—temporal awareness and commonality—is positively related to funding time, thus suggesting that a cultural misalignment is preferred by lenders. Our discussion highlights why nonconformity to local culture may be interpreted as legitimate distinctiveness in the prosocial crowdfunding context.
Journal of International Entrepreneurship – Volume 17(2), 144-171
The long-term trajectory of international new ventures: A longitudinal study of software developers
Renato Cotta de Mello, Angela da Rocha, Jorge Ferreira da Silva
The study examines the long-term trajectory of international new ventures (INVs), departing from three theoretical perspectives: the Uppsala internationalization process model, network theory, and the international entrepreneurship perspective. Propositions emanating from these theoretical perspectives are compared with the empirical data regarding pre-internationalization behavior, motives to internationalize, attitude towards risk, speed of internationalization, choice of markets and entry modes, relationship between growth and internationalization, role of networks, and the engine of internationalization along the firm’s internationalization process. The research method is the longitudinal case study, using a multiple shot design over a period of several years. Data (both real-time and retrospective) were collected in two or more different moments in time for each unit of analysis, with the purpose of identifying changes that occurred as their international trajectory evolved. The trajectory of seven software developers was studied. The use of different sources of both primary and secondary data allowed for triangulation. Data analysis was based on pattern-matching and cross-case analysis. The results show that no single theoretical perspective examined seems to be able to explain the international trajectory of the INVs over time.
Journal of International Entrepreneurship – Volume 17(2), 172-219
Early internationalizing firms: 2004–2018
Rubina Romanello, Maria Chiarvesio
The literature on early internationalization has evolved rapidly in the last few decades. Firms that achieve early and rapid internationalization have emerged as newcomers in the international arena. Disclosed in the late 1980s, international new ventures and born globals today are well known by academics, practitioners, and policymakers. However, the rapid evolution of literature on this topic has produced a considerable corpus of articles in just a few years, discouraging the realization of iterative and thematic analyses. Existing reviews have analyzed the first decade of research or some peculiar aspects of early internationalizing firms or have been focused on the wider international entrepreneurship domain. This article complements previous studies by reviewing the literature on early internationalizing firms over the years 2004–2018. The authors develop a systematic review of 280 studies investigating born globals, international new ventures, and early internationalizing firms that were published in leading journals in the field of international entrepreneurship. The goals of the review are as follows: to describe the state of the art of the literature on early internationalizing firms, to identify the themes that recurred during this period, and to highlight trends and future research perspectives in the field. As one of the implications, this study aims at serving as a summary and starting point for scholars and practitioners interested in early internationalization phenomenon.