Relationships between the dimensions of international growth orientation, environmental turbulence, and strategic orientations

Abstract

A common weakness of most growth models is the assumption that growth is a desired objective for entrepreneurs (see, e.g. Bird, 1989). However, not all entrepreneurial firms seek growth as their primary objective (Covin, Slevin, & Covin, 1990; Porter, 1996), and further there is no reason to expect that all entrepreneurs want their businesses to grow in similar ways (Liao & Welsch, 2003). Thus, in many cases researchers have separated growth orientation from actual growth. In previous studies growth orientation has been defined as precondition to growth (see, e.g. Autio et al., 2000). Growth orientation is an attitudinal concept based on subjective evaluation (Nummela, Puumalainen, & Saarenketo, 2005) and is considered to be particularly important for international growth (Yli-Renko et al., 2002). IGO is thought to be a useful construct for differentiating companies according to their motivation to seek growth in international markets, and also for identifying the factors behind the chosen growth strategies (Nummela et al., 2005).

Citation

Sundqvist, S. and Kuivalainen, O. (2009), "Relationships between the dimensions of international growth orientation, environmental turbulence, and strategic orientations", Sinkovics, R.R. and Ghauri, P.N. (Ed.) New Challenges to International Marketing (Advances in International Marketing, Vol. 20), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 89-123. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1474-7979(2009)0000020007