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This study aims to investigate how mature born global firms create value for customers to achieve continued international growth.

The study employs a case study approach to investigate the under-researched area of how mature born globals create value for customers and, by doing so, contribute to their continued international growth. This in-depth examination of how three born globals developed over time uses interviews, observation and secondary data.

The findings indicate that the entrepreneurs of born global firms, that continued to grow, created a culture in the early stages that supported value creation for foreign customers. These firms have built a competitive position by developing international niche products. They have also implemented a combination of proactive and reactive market orientation to facilitate the creation and delivery of value to customers. To maintain growth, they further invest the revenues earned on additional international marketing activities and continuously enhance their focal products.

The study relies on three cases. We therefore recommend that future studies extend the scope of the research to several companies in various industries and countries, in which the theoretical arguments can be applied. In addition, further studies that test the propositions developed in this study, in different contexts, are highly recommended.

To gain international growth, managers should create an organizational culture that facilitates satisfying international customer needs. Firms should continuously invest in sales and market development (e.g. social media marketing, personal selling) and undertake technology development of niche rather than new products. To achieve international growth, managers need to standardize part of the offer to achieve economies of scale and adapt the other part to international customers' needs.

Research on born globals has focused on the early stages of their internationalization processes, while largely neglecting the later stages (mature born globals) or the factors that lead to continued international growth. To address this gap, this study explores what happens when born globals ‘grow up’. This study contributes to the literature by capturing the factors and processes underlying how mature born globals create value for customers, for international growth. In particular, the study shows that the culture and strategies developed in the born globals' early stages also lead to international growth in later stages. The mature born globals have also invested in niche products, brand building, and effective market channels and adopted a combination of proactive and reactive market orientations.

This study aims to investigate how business-to-business (B2B) companies build brand personality via the products they provide and via their interactions with customers.

A multiple case study, which spans 10 years, investigates via interviews, observations, workshops and document analysis how two fast-growing B2B companies selling industrial equipment to manufacturers build brand personality.

The studied companies concentrate on different brand personality dimensions depending on the activities in which they engage. By focusing on brand competence in the realm of the actual product and brand warmth in the realm of the augmented product, the companies manage to create a complete and consistent brand personality.

The research approach provides in-depth knowledge on how the companies build brands for a specific type of B2B product. However, the article’s perspective is limited to that of management and therefore does not take customer reactions into account.

The study describes how firms can build strong B2B brands by emphasizing competence in product design and R&D and warmth in activities related to sales and customer service.

The study introduces a conceptually consistent view of brand personality in the form of warm and competent brands to the B2B marketing literature. It builds on and contributes to the emerging research on B2B brand personality. By relating the companies’ brand-building activities to the type of products they sell, this study illustrates how context affects B2B brand building, and by integrating brand personality theory with product levels and marketing philosophy, it extends previous theory on B2B branding.

In discussing what a firm’s competence is all about and how that is developed over time, the focus has been on how a firm develops its “core” or “distinctive” competence all by itself. The imbeddedness of a firm in networks of exchange relationships and how that impinges on the development and nurture of a firm’s competence has attracted very scant study. The purpose of this study is to deepen our understanding of the extent to which a firm’s networks of exchange relationships influence its competence development. Two empirical case studies have been conducted in that regard. One important conclusion is that a firm’s network(s) of exchange relationships is an asset that can be exploited to develop its competence. An important implication of the study is that it takes a long time and many resources to build exchange relationships that last in our integrated markets. Many resources and skills will be needed to handle relationships, once established.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the debate on the impact of globalization on the competitiveness of firms in least developed countries (LDCs). Two main research questions will be addressed. How does globalization affect the competitiveness of small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in LDCs? How can SMEs handle opportunities and challenges emerging from globalization?

The methodology for this study is a conceptual attempt to review the existing literature and make some propositions about how SMEs can handle the opportunities and challenges emerging from globalization.

Building on a developed operational framework affecting the competitiveness of firms, some of the expected results are that firms' capabilities with regards to innovation, learning, and internationalization, which increase their competitiveness, are enhanced by institutional setups. Second, establishing relationships with governmental and non‐governmental institutions is crucial in terms of accessing resources, innovating, and entering into foreign markets.

The paper represents a contribution to the debate on the impact of globalization on the competitiveness of firms, particularly SMEs, in LDCs. Although globalization has brought considerable benefits to many actors worldwide, its impact on competitiveness of (SMEs) are controversial. We suggest that globalization's effects depend on the capability of firms to learning, to innovate, and also on the institutional setup in LDCs.

In the extant literature a firm's development of its competitive advantage is seen to be the task of the firm alone. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new and a broader approach of how competitive advantage can be developed and maintained in today's highly competitive and dynamic markets. To this end, how a firm handles its relationships with significant actors in its network becomes very decisive for the development of its competitive advantage.

Drawing on a network approach, case studies have been used to shed lights on the extent to which the development of competitive advantage of firms affect and are affected by their interaction with some actors in a network of exchange relationships.

An important conclusion of this study is that a firm's highly valued performance, an indication of its strong position or competitive strength, has its roots in its regular and intensive interaction with some significant actors in its network.

All firms in this study have demonstrated that competitive advantage can be achieved by building up a strong position through interaction, learning and adaptation with some significant actors in the marketplace. Since the study is based on one setting, extending a similar study to several settings will be very useful.

The paper provides insights into how a firm, in the effort to build its competitive advantage, draws on its own capabilities and complementary capabilities of its partners in a network.

This paper aims, by a direct comparison, to address the differences and similarities of the internationalization processes of multinational companies both from developed and emerging countries.

This study employed qualitative approach, using an integrated model of internationalization process. Multiple case studies, with two companies with significant involvement in foreign markets and originating in countries with different levels of development, were carried out.

The results reveal that the case companies show some differences with regards to their use of ownership advantages to facilitate their internationalization. On the other hand, learning and experience of internationalization, coupled with the use of networks, have been factors that have influenced the pace and the pattern of the case companies' internationalization. An integrated model, which includes variables related to networks and learning/experience, may contribute to the understanding of the case of multinational companies from emerging economies.

Although the research field of emerging multinationals has been growing lately, very few attempts have been made in the sense of directly comparing the internationalization process of firms from both developed and emerging countries. The authors proposed an integrated analytical model that draws on insights from the eclectic paradigm and the Uppsala internationalization model.

The purpose of this paper is to compare similarities and differences in perceived quality of business relationships in Norway and Sweden.

The Norwegian and Swedish sampling frames consisted of 600 small‐ and medium‐sized firms in each country. A response rate of 36.5 percent was achieved in Norway and 21 percent in Sweden. Leading executives from both countries were used as key informants because they are the primary decision‐makers most knowledgeable about their firm's interactions with suppliers.

The findings indicate that there are a series of significant differences and associations between the perceived quality of business relationships in small and medium‐sized firms in Norway and Sweden, though both countries resemble each other in both socio‐economic indicators and cultural dimensions.

One suggestion for further research is to replicate the study in other industries, business relationships, and countries. Another is to undertake a longitudinal approach of the focal areas of “perceived quality” and “supplier criteria”.

This study is of managerial interest, as the framework may be applied by firms to monitor and evaluate ongoing supplier relationships and, in extension, their current customer relationships. It would be of interest to see if similarities exist amongst other cultures of the focal areas, and/or if there are differences across other countries that are decidedly different from those in Norway and Sweden.

This paper makes a contribution to inter‐organizational theory since it outlines a conceptual framework of focal areas of “perceived quality” and “supplier criteria” for examining business relationships across industries and countries for the benefit of other researchers.

The purpose of this study is to provide deeper insights into the extent to which an independent actor(s) actively collaborates with the internationalizing firm so as to jointly determine the choice of market, the mode of entry and the level of investment committed in the market to be entered and even after the entry (i.e. the ongoing activities).

Against the previous purpose section, a qualitative research approach is selected to guide the exploratory nature of this study. Thus qualitative data are used to build the two case studies because case studies are generally a more appropriate approach when “how” and “why” questions are being posed and when the investigator has little control over events.

Based on two multiple case studies, one major finding of the study shows that independent actors, with their interconnected networks, have played and are still playing a major role in influencing the internationalization processes of each of the two firms in this study.

This is an original paper developed based on two case studies which have not been published in any journal before. The paper highlights the role of external independent actors in internationalization, which is not mentioned at all or stressed in the extant literature.