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The aim of this paper to examine the mechanism through which the capabilities related to internationalisation emerge and are acquired as firms internationalise.

This study draws on existing literature on born global firms and dynamic capabilities to develop a tentative framework and then use that to examine a longitudinal case study of an Indian firm operating within knowledge-intensive services industry. The role played by these capabilities in the survival and sustained international growth of born global firms has been probed.

The study establishes a link between firm’s ability to develop such capabilities for global service delivery and its growth and survival. It is suggested that dynamic capabilities emerge as the result of a mix of experiential and deliberate learning processes, being in a constant change in rhythm with changes in domestic and in international business environments.

This study is based on a single case study from knowledge-intensive service industry in India with its own particular characteristics. Thus, the findings of this study may not be generalised across other emerging markets or industry.

Entrepreneurs and managers of new ventures can benefit from this study, as this study helps them develop a deeper understanding of the different capability requirements for successful internationalisation.

This study contributed to the existing literature on capability evolution in born global firms.

Emerging markets play an important role in the global economy. However, a common feature of most emerging markets is that firms must operate in a resource-constrained environment. In emerging markets, global mindset is a necessary resource for firms’ global competitiveness. Although global mindset has been proven to improve export performance, the theoretical mechanism behind this relationship is less clear. Based on the resource-based on the resource-based view and capability-building perspective, this study developed a model linking global mindset, relational capability, bricolage capability, innovation, and export performance.

A survey was conducted to collect data from exporting firms in Taiwan. Subsequently, the data (n = 172) were analyzed using a partial least squares program.

The analytical results reveal that a global mindset positively influences relational and bricolage capabilities; relational capability positively affects bricolage capability; relational capability and bricolage capability have significant and direct effects on innovation; and innovation positively affects export performance.

The findings confirm that a global mindset plays a crucial role in the capability-building process, which suggests that it contributes to the development of relational and bricolage capabilities. Also, relational capability is critical for exporting firms to develop bricolage capability. Finally, innovation is an important mediating mechanism between capabilities and export performance. Therefore, exporting firms can develop their international business models on the basis of their capabilities, including relational capability and bricolage capability. These capabilities improve innovation, which, in turn, enhances export performance in a resource-constrained environment.

While earlier research discussed networking and alliance strategies of born globals on a strategic level, this paper investigates and analyses the specific organizational skills that enable the firms to successfully initiate, manage and finish their R&D alliances with Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). It is discussed how the specific aspects of the alliance capability can help born globals to counteract the challenges and risks of collaborating with MNEs. A longitudinal process study of a Danish technology born global with three embedded cases of its R&D and marketing alliances with Asian MNEs is discussed. The organizational skills comprising the alliance capability are defined to be internal and external assessment skills, need detection and coupling skills, asset protection skills, project management skills, termination skills and the learning processes to build the alliance capability further. A set of propositions is developed to tie these organizational skills to alliance performance.

Is the development of local innovation capabilities enough for foreign subsidiaries in emerging markets to be able to integrate into global R&D projects? The authors argue that it is not. The purpose of this paper is to show the central role of R&D capacities when it comes to inserting foreign subsidiaries in emerging markets into global R&D projects.

The study investigated 131 foreign multinational subsidiaries operating in Brazil. For each subsidiary, the authors surveyed two to five directors or C-level executives from innovation, R&D, engineering, product development and projects. the authors used structural equation modeling for analysis.

The results indicate that product and process innovations alone do not guarantee the insertion of the emerging market subsidiaries into global innovation projects. Such insertion depends on the subsidiary’s accumulation of R&D capacities.

The results reinforce the central issue of building product and process innovation capabilities as the first step toward a blueprint for global projects. However, the effort is not limited to these initiatives. Product and process innovation efforts need be reverted in headquarters’ eyes in order for subsidiaries to gain R&D center status. To achieve this, subsidiaries must align their technological innovations with multinational corporations’ innovation strategies.

In authors’ view, this study contributes to the literature in three main areas: the evolutionary process of innovation capability in subsidiaries, the reverse innovation debate and the discussion of subsidiaries’ initiatives.

Globalization requires business leaders who can manage effectively in multicultural environments. Although many organizations assume leaders will enhance their multicultural skills through international assignments, it is unclear how leaders translate these international experiences into knowledge and skills that enhance their effectiveness. Based on experiential learning theory (ELT), we propose that cultural intelligence (CQ) is an essential learning capability that leaders can use to translate their international experiences into effective experiential learning in culturally diverse contexts.

The purpose of this study is to organize and assess knowledge on the capabilities pertinent to the early internationalization of born globals (BGs) and international new ventures (INVs).

A systematic approach is used to search, code, organize and synthesize 155 peer-reviewed journal articles on capabilities and early internationalization.

The study delimits eight operational and five dynamic capabilities. The synthesis links capabilities to three antecedents (i.e. firm specific factors, managerial socio cognitive attributes and market factors) and three outcomes (i.e. precocity, survival and performance). While 7 of the 12 linkages identified are well-established, relationships involving market factors, survival and dynamic capabilities are sparsely researched.

The authors know more about the effects of firm specific factors and managerial socio cognitive attributes on operational and dynamic capabilities than we do the influence of market factors on either group of capabilities. Likewise, the authors know more about the influence of operational and dynamic capabilities on performance than we do their impact on precocity or survival.

As the pandemic has shown, businesses with adaptable capabilities (e.g. shifting from a brick and mortar to an online/omnichannel approach or micro-breweries competent to switch from manufacturing beer to hand sanitizer) have increased their chance of survival while helping society cope.

This to the authors’ knowledge is the first study to provide a comprehensive review of literature on the nebulous concept of capabilities, in the context of the burgeoning research stream on early internationalization.

Based on a dynamic capability (DC) view, the purpose of this paper is to explore whether market orientation (MO) (external) and learning orientation (LO) (internal) facilitate internationalizing small- and medium-sized enterprises’ (ISMEs) global dynamic capabilities (GDCs) – i.e., their global marketing and product-design capabilities – and promote firm performance.

Empirical data are randomly selected from Taiwanese ISMEs, yielding 206 valid responses. Informants’ (CEOs, vice presidents, senior managers) knowledge about and shouldering of firm responsibilities are explored.

A significant increase in global marketing and product-design capabilities is found to affect firm performance. MO and LO positively influence GDCs, which increase firm performance. Furthermore, LO and MO support GDCs’ development.

The sample is reasonably diverse in terms of demographics including firm location, size, industry, and market type. Disaggregation results are generally robust regarding model parameters. However, future research should target different countries to assess result generalizability.

The findings reveal two practical implications for managers. First, successful GDCs help firms spread the costs of designing products or components across many contexts and to offer appealing products to consumers worldwide. Second, it is important that managers foster development of MOs and LOs.

The study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, by conceptualizing GDCs of ISMEs, DC literature is expanded based on a global context. Second, the complexity of extending DC literature into ISMEs may arise from the fact that ISMEs, as separate and living entities, devise their own organizational culture, which significantly affects their GDC development.

The purpose of this paper is to address global sourcing organisational design through the following research questions: how do the roles performed by International Purchasing Offices (IPOs) change over time?; what are the resources/capabilities required by an IPO for an effective performance and how do they change over time?; and what are the contingent factors affecting such changes?

The authors employed an exploratory multiple case study approach and analysed 14 Western IPOs located in China for a period between 2007 and 2012. The data were primarily collected through 34 direct, semi-structured interviews of IPO heads and sourcing managers or senior buyers.

The authors identify and discuss the importance of ten roles played by IPOs and 12 required resources/capabilities. Furthermore, considering the changes that occurred to these IPOs over a five-year period (2007-2012), the authors observe three distinct evolutionary behaviours (i.e. “overall development”, “selective development”, and “stable configuration”) and highlight three contingent factors that jointly affect these behaviours (i.e. the architectural and technological complexity of the sourced items, annual volume sourced abroad, and experience in the foreign context).

This paper contributes to the resource-based view of the firm in a global sourcing context by highlighting the resources/capabilities required by IPOs and discussing their characteristics. Furthermore, it proposes a typology of IPO micro-organisational evolutionary behaviours. Finally, it applies contingency theory and identifies three factors that might affect the evolutionary behaviours.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of original equipment manufacturing (OEM) suppliers’ electronic integration with global customers on their capability widening, following the literature on electronic integration, firm innovativeness, product modularity and dynamic capabilities. It also examines the moderating roles of supplier innovativeness and product modularity in the proposed relationship.

This study conducts empirical examination on a sample of OEM suppliers in Taiwan. It collects 201 self-reported responses via mailed surveys of 1,069 electronics companies listed in the 5000 Largest Firms in Taiwan, and the archival data are obtained from the Taiwan Economic Journal database.

The results show that electronic integration with global customers affects capability widening negatively, whereas supplier innovativeness affects capability widening positively. In addition, product modularity plays a moderating role in the relationship between electronic integration and capability widening.

This study contributes to the electronic integration literature by providing empirical evidences on how OEM suppliers’ electronic integration affects their capability widening. This study also adds to the supply chain management literature by demonstrating the relationship between OEM suppliers’ innovativeness and their move into higher value-added activities, as well as how product modularity interplays with electronic integration between customers and suppliers on suppliers’ capability widening in global supplier‒customer relationships.

For OEM suppliers with a low level of product modularity, they may widen their capabilities by exploring other value-added activities (e.g. original design manufacturing or original brand manufacturing). For OEM suppliers with a high level of product modularity, the improvement of their manufacturing capabilities is a helpful approach to create competitive advantage.

This study is one of the first to examine the interplay between electronic integration and product modularity on capability widening of OEM suppliers from an emerging market. Meanwhile, this study provides support for the relationship between supplier innovativeness and innovative activities in the global supply chain context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of globalisation on corporate real estate strategies. Specifically, it seeks to identify corporate real estate capabilities that are important in a hypercompetitive business climate.

This paper utilises a qualitative approach to analyse secondary data in order to identify the corporate real estate capabilities for a hypercompetitive business environment.

Globalisation today is an undeniable phenomenon that is fundamentally changing the way business is conducted. In the light of global hypercompetition, corporate real estate needs to develop new capabilities to support global business strategies. These include flexibility, network organization and managerial learning capabilities.

This is a conceptual paper and future empirical research needs to be conducted to verify the propositions made in this paper.

Given the new level of uncertainty in the business climate, that is, hypercompetition, businesses need to develop dynamic capabilities that are harder for competitors to imitate in order to maintain what is considered a “momentary” competitive advantage. The findings of this paper are useful to guide corporate real estate managers in this regard.

This paper is original in two ways. First, it applies the strategic management concept of capabilities to corporate real estate. Second, it links the key challenge that businesses face today, i.e. globalisation, to the concept of capabilities as a means to maintain competitive advantage.