International Entrepreneurial Orientation Disposition: Insights into Venture Internationalization

Abstract

The literature on international entrepreneurship offers two competing views on why new ventures internationalize: (a) the nature of the opportunity pulls them international or (b) the founder pushes the firm international. While these two internationalization drivers are not independent, they do represent unique causal mechanisms. Previously, the tools available to understand the entrepreneur’s disposition toward internationalization were limited. The present study uses the theoretical foundation of the international entrepreneurial orientation construct and from it develops and tests an attitudinally-based individual-level measure of disposition toward internationalization. To ensure the validity and reliability of the new measure, termed International Entrepreneurial Orientation Disposition, studies were conducted to: develop new scale items, examine their psychometric properties and construct validity, and demonstrate criterion validity. A strong measurement model is developed using structural equation modeling (CFI = 0.93, RMSEA = 0.07), and the measure is shown to be useful as a predictor of perceived international venture attractiveness.

Citation

Clark, D.R. and Covin, J.G. (2021), "International Entrepreneurial Orientation Disposition: Insights into Venture Internationalization", Corbett, A.C., Kreiser, P.M., Marino, L.D. and Wales, W.J. (Ed.) Entrepreneurial Orientation: Epistemological, Theoretical, and Empirical Perspectives (Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emergence and Growth, Vol. 22), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 87-120. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1074-754020210000022004