The role of the entrepreneur in identifying international expansion as a strategic opportunity

Citation

Santos-Álvarez, V. (2011), "The role of the entrepreneur in identifying international expansion as a strategic opportunity", Strategic Direction, Vol. 27 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/sd.2011.05627fad.010

The role of the entrepreneur in identifying international expansion as a strategic opportunity

Article Type: Abstracts From: Strategic Direction, Volume 27, Issue 6

Santos-Álvarez V. and García-Merino T.International Journal of Information Management, December 2010, Volume 30 Issue 6, Start page: 512, No. of pages: 9

This research explores business internationalisation as a process of recognising and exploiting business opportunities in an international context and uses Spain’s natural stone industry as a case study. It differentiates internationalisation into two stages: opportunity identification and subsequent opportunity exploitation. It focuses on the initial identification stage to determine the impact of entrepreneurs’ cognitive variables when gathering relevant information for internationalisation of the firm, highlighting the role of entrepreneurs’ alertness, the centre of interest, causal logic, and prior experience. It also examines the importance of the entrepreneur’s environment, social networks, and institutional setting. In this empirical analysis, it is found that, although interested in internationalisation, entrepreneurs in the natural stone industry devote very little time and effort to gathering information. As a result, decisions related to internationalisation are restricted by uncertainty and a poor understanding of the appeal, barriers, and available support services.Article type: Case studyISSN: 0268-4012Reference: 39BB619

Keywords: Alertness, Information gathering