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International new ventures have been argued to seek foreign markets from inception in response to the external environment and/or motivations internal to the firm. For example, a new venture that exists in an industry that is more globally integrated is more likely to have a need to internationalize in order to remain competitive (Shrader, Oviatt, & McDougall, 2000). Similarly, those new ventures that have limited domestic growth due to the size of their home country may look elsewhere in order to gain a sufficient level of sales to survive (Zahra & George, 2002). Some of the many firm-specific motivations to internationalize might include the desire to fully exploit a unique product (Burgel & Murray, 2000; Oviatt & McDougall, 1994, 1995), capitalize on the learning advantage of newness (Autio, Sapienza, & Almeida, 2000) or take advantage of networking opportunities (Reuber & Fischer, 1997).

The literature on international entrepreneurship offers two competing views on why new ventures internationalize: (a) the nature of the opportunity pulls them international or (b) the founder pushes the firm international. While these two internationalization drivers are not independent, they do represent unique causal mechanisms. Previously, the tools available to understand the entrepreneur’s disposition toward internationalization were limited. The present study uses the theoretical foundation of the international entrepreneurial orientation construct and from it develops and tests an attitudinally-based individual-level measure of disposition toward internationalization. To ensure the validity and reliability of the new measure, termed International Entrepreneurial Orientation Disposition, studies were conducted to: develop new scale items, examine their psychometric properties and construct validity, and demonstrate criterion validity. A strong measurement model is developed using structural equation modeling (CFI = 0.93, RMSEA = 0.07), and the measure is shown to be useful as a predictor of perceived international venture attractiveness.

Entrepreneurship is an emerging and evolving field of inquiry. Entrepreneurship research has been expanding its boundaries by exploring and developing explanations and predictions of entrepreneurship phenomena in terms of events such as innovation, new venture creation and growth as well as characteristics of individual entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial organizations. The largest institutionalized community of entrepreneurship scholars – the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management – has developed an entrepreneurship specific domain that incorporates the creation and management of new businesses, small businesses and family businesses, and the characteristics and special problems of entrepreneurs; it has further identified major topics such as new venture ideas and strategies, ecological influences on venture creation and demise, the acquisition and management of venture capital and venture teams, self-employment, the owner-manager, management succession, corporate venturing, and the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic development. One growing entrepreneurship research sub-field is corporate entrepreneurship (intrapreneurship), i.e. entrepreneurship in existing organizations. Emerging in the past two decades, the initial research in corporate entrepreneurship focused on new business venturing, i.e. the formation of new ventures by existing organizations, mostly corporations, and the focus on the entrepreneurial individual inside a corporation – this focus was then extended to include entrepreneurial characteristics at the organizational level. Corporate entrepreneurship research has evolved into three focal areas. The first area of focus is on the individual intrapreneur (Jennings, Cox & Cooper, 1994; Jones & Butler, 1992; Knight, 1989; Lessem, 1988; Luchsinger & Bagby, 1987; McKinney & McKinney, 1989; Pinchot, 1985; Ross, 1987; Souder, 1981), mainly emphasizing the intrapreneur’s individual characteristics. The recognition and support of entrepreneurs in organizations is also a part of this focal area. The second area of focus has been on the formation of new corporate ventures (Burgelman, 1985; Carrier, 1994; Cooper, 1981; Fast & Pratt, 1981; Hisrich & Peters, 1984; Hlavacek & Thompson, 1973; Krueger & Brazeal, 1994; MacMillan, Block & Narasimha, 1984; Szypersky & Klandt, 1984; Vesper, 1990); this area’s primary emphasis is on the different of types of new ventures, their fit with the corporation, and their enabling corporate internal environment. The third area of focus is on the entrepreneurial organization (Burgelman, 1983; Drucker, 1985; Duncan et al., 1988; Hanan, 1976; Kanter, 1984; Kuratko et al., 1993; Merrifield, 1993; Muzyka, de Konning & Churchill, 1995; Pinchot, 1985; Quinn, 1979; Rule & Irwin, 1988; Schollhammer, 1981; Stevenson & Jarillo, 1990; Stopford & Baden-Fuller, 1994), which mainly emphasizes the characteristics of these organizations.

Yves Doz, Jose Santos, and Peter Williamson’s (2001) book about metanational processes emphasizes entrepreneurial behavior and briefly considers what they call metanational upstarts. We extend their exploration in this article through our focus on the rapid internationalization of new ventures. We present a multilevel model of new venture internationalization that highlights the importance of managing risk. The model specifies relationships between the general environment and venture entrepreneurs that are mediated by industry conditions, and relationships between industry conditions and the venture that are mediated by the decisions and actions of entrepreneurs. Complex interactions and simultaneous relationships are described among the entrepreneurs, the venture, and venture internationalization.

Research on corporate entrepreneurship (CE) has grown rapidly over the past decade (for reviews, see Dess et al., 2003). This interest in CE stems from rising international competition, requiring companies to learn new skills and develop new competencies (Eisemhardt & Santos, 2003). These competencies enable companies to compete in new market arenas both at home and internationally, creating value for shareholders (McGrath, MacMillan & Venkataraman, 1995). With more and more companies focusing on international expansion, recent research on CE has focused on examining international issues. Though most past research is comparative in nature, some has investigated companies’ international expansion as a forum within which CE activities unfold (Zahra & Garvis, 2000).

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce an emergent type of INV (international new venture) – designated as “borderless firm” – present some recent cases and speculate about its future occurrence.

A search of the literature identified 25 cases that fitted, to a greater or lesser extent, the conceptual definition of a borderless firm presented in the chapter. We also found three teaching cases whose focus-firms fitted our definition.

The three firms present a combination of intentional design with fortuitous experimentation and intensively exploited relationships. They fulfill the key features of our definition.

This study is still embryonic and was driven by the authors’ conceptual thinking, based on their intuition about a new type of firm. Detailed data came from only three cases, but 25 other cases were identified, which did, to some extent, fit the definition of a borderless firm and, as such, could be studied with this focus in order to provide further evidence and to refine the conceptual definition and our understanding of the empirical manifestation of this type of firm.

We shed light on an interesting – and probably bound to occur more frequently in the future – type of firm with distinctive characteristics: a managerial mindset that does not feel constrained by geographical frontiers; a high geographical dispersion of value-added activities (beyond the sales and distribution activities that characterize most of the literature on Born Globals and INVs); and a multi-country pool of founders/managers and internationally dispersed staff.

The study this chapter reports focuses on how network theory contributes to the understanding of the internationalization process of SMEs and measures the effect of network capability on performance in international trade and has three research objectives.

The first objective of the study relates to providing new insights into the international market development activities through the application of a network perspective. The chapter reviews the international business literature to ascertain the development of thought, the research gaps, and the shortcomings. This review shows that the network perspective is a useful and popular theoretical domain that researchers can use to understand international activities, particularly of small, high technology, resource-constrained firms.

The second research objective is to gain a deeper understanding of network capability. This chapter presents a model for the impact of network capability on international performance by building on the emerging literature on the dynamic capabilities view of the firm. The model conceptualizes network capability in terms of network characteristics, network operation, and network resources. Network characteristics comprise strong and weak ties (operationalized as foreign-market entry modes), relational capability, and the level of trust between partners. Network operation focuses on network initiation, network coordination, and network learning capabilities. Network resources comprise network human-capital resources, synergy-sensitive resources (resource combinations within the network), and information sharing within the network.

The third research objective is to determine the impact of networking capability on the international performance of SMEs. The study analyzes 11 hypotheses through structural equations modeling using LISREL. The hypotheses relate to strong and weak ties, the relative strength of strong ties over weak ties, and each of the eight remaining constructs of networking capability in the study. The research conducts a cross-sectional study by using a sample of SMEs drawn from the telecommunications industry in Ireland.

The study supports the hypothesis that strong ties are more influential on international performance than weak ties. Similarly, network coordination and human-capital resources have a positive and significant association with international performance. Strong ties, weak ties, trust, network initiation, synergy-sensitive resources, relational capability, network learning, and information sharing do not have a significant association with international performance. The results of this study are strong (R2=0.63 for performance as the outcome) and provide a number of interesting insights into the relations between collaboration or networking capability and performance.

This study provides managers and policy makers with an improved understanding of the contingent effects of networks to highlight situations where networks might have limited, zero, or even negative effects on business outcomes. The study cautions against the tendency to interpret networks as universally beneficial to business development and performance outcomes.

The paper focuses on legitimation and legitimation strategies applied by companies. Following the process of systematic review, we analyse empirical studies exploring legitimation and legitimation strategies from different theoretical perspectives. Using the key findings by reconnoitering and comparing the theoretical background, approaches, methodologies and findings of these empirical studies, we outline potential directions for research in the legitimation strategies of firms engaged in international business operations.

This study is a response to the paucity of research into early internationalising firms based in India. We seek to explore the internationalisation of small and new Indian firms and the decision-making process of their entrepreneurs/managers.

The study uses original, primary data gathered from in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with the managers of six such firms to explore the factors that might facilitate, motivate, or impede the efforts undertaken by young Indian firms to embark upon a process of early internationalisation.

Our findings suggest that, in line with their counterparts from other countries, the early internationalisation of small firms from India is driven primarily by the search for more favourable demand conditions overseas and is facilitated by new technologies. However, we find no evidence suggesting that the emergence of early internationalising firms from India is driven by the search for more favourable production conditions or by the direct international experience and exposure of their founders. In line with prior scholarly work, our research suggests that government support is an important facilitator of early internationalisation of small firms.

The study provides insights into the internationalisation process of INVs from India and contributes to broadening our understanding of the behaviour of firms under a set of specific institutional conditions. Based on our findings, we develop a conceptual framework which can be useful for further empirical testing. Our study is also one of the few to be conducted on a sample of INVs from India.

This chapter focuses on the impact that private-equity financing has on nurturing and developing global entrepreneurs in emerging economies. The research question is: how do potentially high-impact entrepreneurial start-ups in emerging economies rapidly expand globally in order to compete with developed-country competitors. Oviatt’s and McDougall’s (1994, 2005) international new venture typology is used to analyze a case study of an emerging-economy, born-global start-up and its relationship with a venture capital firm, which is crucial to develop a competitive international business strategy.

In spite of operating in an emerging country lacking a well-developed entrepreneurial ecosystem (institutional void), a global start-up in conjunction with a venture capital firm that practiced a hands-on investment strategy, was able to successfully scale its business model globally over a 10-year period. The venture capital firm played a critical role in providing institutional support, lacking in this emerging country, to enable the start-up to quickly grow and become competitive with Western competitors.