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The recent emergence of Chinese digital platform firms, whose size rivals that of the US platform giants, has attracted much popular interest. Given the size and increasing technical sophistication of these firms, there has been increasing interest in whether they have developed sufficient capacities and resources to become global-class competitors for the reigning US platform giants. The authors assembled a database of all overseas operations of the Chinese platform firms. Nine of them have foreign operations, with Tencent and Alibaba being the most important offshore investors. The authors describe the globalization patterns of these firms and analyze the strengths and obstacles to their globalization. Their globalization has proceeded on a number of vectors: first, these firms, with a few exceptions, when they have global strategies, have largely invested in firms with useful technology or content. One common strategy has been to follow Chinese customers abroad. Second, Chinese firms have made equity investments in a number of foreign Internet firms. And yet, in nearly all foreign markets, Chinese websites and apps still trail the US firms in market share and salience. Finally, Chinese investments are concentrated in proximate countries. Chinese platform firms, while having some state-of-the-art technologies, have a far smaller foreign presence than their US competitors do. Finally, the authors consider the implications of their research for discussions of whether emerging nation multinational firms require new theories for explaining their globalization.

This book chapter takes an institutional perspective on competing logics in global markets concerned with sustainability values and how market actors in the form of buyers and sellers attempt to solve these conflicting situations. We do this by identifying competing institutional logics in global market contexts aiming for sustainability values, together with techniques for navigating these competing institutional logics in the organizational field studied. As an empirical illustration, we use a case study of buyers and sellers in two different markets where sustainability has come into focus for their market relationships. This viewpoint allows us to better understand how global market actors deal with the competing institutional logics in their market context. We make three contributions with this research: firstly, we identify the institutional logics in global markets towards sustainability; secondly, we demonstrate how global market actors prioritize among the competing logics and their market relationships and thirdly, we outline what this means for the relationship between buyers and sellers in global markets towards sustainability.

In examining the issues relating to global marketing strategy, scholars have primarily focused on marketing opportunities in the developed world. Recently, rapid rates of growth in emerging market countries have resulted in a growing interest in the market potential of these countries. Developing a global marketing strategy to target these diverse types of markets suggests the need to develop divergent strategies for different types of markets rather than focusing on integrating strategies across markets. To date, however, little is known about how to achieve this effectively. This paper briefly reviews past approaches to these issues and then indicates critical topics for future research.

The chapter is structured as follows: in the first part, we provide the framework for the analysis of the formation of the born global firm, whereas the entrepreneurial, strategic, and network-based factors are conceptually linked and leading toward a global champion. The analytical model proposes the analysis of strategic choices as defining factors at the level of entrepreneurial behavior, firm strategy, and network. The case study methodology is provided in the second part of the chapter. The third part provides the empirical linkages of entrepreneurial, strategy based, and network factors’ manifestations and underpinnings in R&D intensive entrepreneurial born global firms. These are followed by discussion and conclusions enclosing empirically grounded framework that explains the emergence of R&D intensive entrepreneurial-hidden champions from the perspective of entrepreneurial firm and network theories.

The purpose of this study is to advance our understanding of the difference between born globals and non-born globals. An Australian sample of 315 internationally active firms is surveyed using the mail questionnaire approach. After comparing born globals with other international firms, the results show about a quarter of the samples was born globals. The main differentiating attributes of the born globals versus non-born globals were their international performance, greater international commitment (willingness to invest resources into international ventures), smaller size of firms, and speed to market. Alternatively, there were several marketing capabilities, such as market orientation and brand adaptation, which were not superior for born globals.

The pervasiveness of the globalization phenomenon has triggered a significant number of studies related to the measurement of globalization and its implications for firms. Interestingly, most of the work is based on objective data, neglecting the importance of subjective and perceptual measures of degree of company globalization (DoCG). This study reviews the preliminary attempts to develop a subjective construct and a perceptual measurement tool for company globalization. Based on the work of Cavusgil, Yeniyurt, and Townsend (2004) a confirmatory factor analysis with partial least squares (PLS) path modeling illustrates relevant factors that capture the degree of globalization from a sample of multinationals. Post-hoc tests for the applicability of the generated framework are conducted to examine the consistency of results from the factor analysis. We also test the relationship between subjective and objective measures of company globalization. Although the small sample size does not allow the generalizability of the findings, this study contributes to the body of research aspiring to clarify the nature of a global company, offers a subjective measure for this phenomenon that can stimulate survey-based research with corporate elites, and thus provides a platform for further research.