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In recent years, the phenomena of “accelerating” and “jumping” during the international expansion of Chinese enterprises have attracted a lot of attention from scholars. However, while a CEO’s career horizon can significantly affect his or her enterprise’s strategic decision-making, few studies have explored the role of CEO career horizon in terms of “accelerating” and “jumping” internationalization.

Based on a sample of China’s A-share listed manufacturing companies from 2008 to 2017, this study explores the impact of CEO career horizon on the internationalization pace and international rhythm of enterprises.

First, the shorter the CEO’s career horizon, the more likely the CEO can avoid risky strategic decisions, which ultimately causes a negative relationship between CEO career horizon and the internationalization pace and rhythm of the enterprise. Second, for larger and older boards of directors, there is a more negative impact of the CEO’s short-term career horizon on the internationalization pace and internationalization rhythm of the company. However, given a larger proportion of female directors and non-executive directors, the CEO’s short-term career horizon has a weaker negative impact on international pace and the rhythm of internationalization.

First, based on upper echelon theory, this study interprets the influence of CEO career horizon on the time dimension of corporate internationalization (including internationalization pace and international rhythm), deepening the theory’s explanatory power. Second, by clarifying the important predictive effect of CEO career horizon on internationalization pace and international rhythm, this research enriches extant research on both variables’ antecedents, as well as that on the influence of CEO career horizon. Finally, by introducing the regulatory role of the board’s supervisory ability, this study clarifies the boundary conditions for the influence of the CEO’s career horizon on international pace and rhythm, and it expands the literature on how CEOs and boards of directors can influence corporate strategic decisions during the internationalization process.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the compensation level and the gap between the chief executive officer (CEO) and the top management team (TMT) with respect to the rhythm of firm internationalization.

The approach takes the form of an empirical analysis. The authors use longitudinal data (1997-2006) of a sample of 345 publicly-listed firms in Taiwan.

The results show that higher CEO compensation will lead to regular foreign expansion. The CEO–TMT compensation gap has a curvilinear effect on the rhythm of firm internationalization.

These findings highlight that the compensation structure has a significant influence on a firm ' s internationalization strategy. This research contributes to the literature linking strategic human resource management and corporate strategy in terms of firm internationalization.

When firms consider regular foreign expansion, the compensation committee should design a high total compensation level and appropriate the compensation gap between the CEO and TMT members.

This study sheds light on how the compensation of the upper echelons determines whether the internationalization rhythm is regular or irregular. Moreover, the study examines how internal contingencies, such as performance, moderate the relationship between the upper echelons’ compensation and the internationalization rhythm.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct effects of state capitalism on the internationalization behavior of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Specifically, the authors focus on four distinct aspects of internationalization behavior; namely, pace of internationalization, rhythm of internationalization, location choice (developing countries vs developed countries), and diversity of product lines.

The authors empirically test the hypotheses using data from Chinese construction companies during the period 2009-2015. The authors build a unique dataset by combining the data from ENR Top 225 International Contractors reports and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce of China information. Moreover, concerning the panel data structure and the potential for autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity, The authors use the feasible generalized least square panel model to test the hypotheses.

The authors find that the level of state capitalism has a positive effect on SOEs’ rhythm of internationalization, while there is no significant relationship between the level of state capitalism and the pace of internationalization. Furthermore, the authors find that the SOEs affiliated with higher levels of government organizations are more likely to locate business operations in developing countries and engage in more diversity of product lines.

The findings show that the different varieties of state capitalism are the source of the different internationalization patterns of SOEs. Instead of supposing SOEs to be uniform players in emerging economies, the authors show that the nature of SOEs varies depending on the level of government with which they are affiliated, and this fact results from the divergent manifestations of state capitalism itself.

This study improves the understanding of how state capitalism affects the capabilities and motivations of SOEs in regard to overseas expansion. The authors extend institutional theory by supposing that the level of state capitalism has a positive effect on the rhythm of internationalization. Moreover, the authors find that SOEs embedded with high levels of government affiliation tend to enter into developing countries and diversify their product lines.

This paper aims to use the institutional and information-processing perspectives to explore their association with between internationalization and the Penrose effect phenomenon for business groups (BGs).

The authors use ordinary least squares regression models to test arguments about data pertaining to 101 Taiwanese BGs’ foreign direct investments.

The results indicate that greater levels of depth and scope in the process of internationalization during one period may negatively affect rates of growth in the following period. The results further demonstrate that institutional distance moderates the relationship.

Using the perspective of information-processing demands, the authors provide alternate explanations regarding the relationship between the process of internationalization (depth, scope and rhythm) and the Penrose effect.

Owners and managers should focus on both the depth and the scope of internationalization. BGs are likely to incur high dynamic adjustment costs, which then limit the rate of BGs’ growth. Managers should balance international market uncertainty with current managerial resources when determining how deeply and broadly to expand internationally and where to enter. In addition, as recent major panel studies suggest, management capabilities and practices can improve significantly, which has a positive effect on firm growth and performance. This does require the careful development and acquisition of the managerial resources needed for internationalization.

Although the concepts of family business, internationalization, and agency theory have received some attention in the relevant literature, these concepts and theories have been used independently. The purpose of this paper is to help close the gap between what is known and what needs to be known about the decision-making processes of internationalization of family managers (FM) and non-family managers (NFMs).

The paper analyzes the story of Busscar, a Brazilian firm that began internationalization under an FM and ended it under an NFM. The management transition took place suddenly, as the family CEO died in a tragic accident, and the company appointed an NFM to replace him virtually overnight. These circumstances, as well as the fact that Busscar accelerated its internationalization process after the transition only to go bankrupt a few years later makes this case critical.

The paper concludes that under NFMs, the speed and scope of the firm internationalization processes were accelerated and the financial risks were augmented, which is in line with the agency theory hypothesis and contradicts suggestions that NFMs tend to be more structured.

Many researchers argue that it is important to professionalize the management of family firms. It is expected that an NFM leads to a more structured strategy. The study shows otherwise; changing the manager leads to opportunistic internationalization using emerging strategies rather than deliberate ones.

This study suggests that firms, networks, entrepreneurship, and ownership are not the only important variables. Manager origin (inside or outside the family) can change everything.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between family succession, professionalization and internationalization in family businesses within the Brazilian context.

The paper presents a multiple-case study method with three Brazilian family businesses that have at least two generations of the owning family involved in the business and an international presence of at least three years. In-depth interviews and secondary data were undertaken with family and non-family members of each case.

The authors' results show that a family business can boost its internationalization by introducing both succession planning and professionalization on international activities. As family members tend to be more risk-averse and focused on keeping the family business within the family, professionalization is a way of improving the firm's ability to expand internationally. This process tends to lead to lower performance by the firm for the first few months or the first year after the investment, but afterward, international performance tends to grow exponentially.

Only a few studies have been concerned on the relationship of these three dimensions. Thus, the research takes into account that professionalization and succession lead family businesses to improve their internationalization strategies.

The authors seek to advance the understanding of small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) internationalization at the regional level and examine the role of home market institutions in this process.

The authors analyze hypotheses with data from SMEs in five country markets and from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. A cluster analysis establishes the regional diversification patterns (based on regional diversification scope, speed and rhythm) and a multinomial regression tests the effect of home market institutions on their adoption.

The results offer a refined picture of SME regional diversification by revealing three patterns: intra-regionally focused firms, late inter-region diversifiers and early inter-region diversifiers. They also suggest that the adoption of these patterns is determined by SMEs' home market institutions.

The authors develop a nuanced understanding of SME internationalization by building upon and expanding the regionalization rationale in the internationalization patterns literature. Additionally, the authors address the acknowledged, yet rarely investigated, country-level determinants of internationalization patterns.

Drawing on the gender self-schema theory, upper echelons theory and the literature on international business, this study aims to examine the impact of board gender diversity on firms' internationalization speed.

In this study, secondary data of 886 listed Chinese manufacturing firms from 2009 to 2018 are studied using the ordinary least squares regression model as the baseline method, an instrumental variable method is adopted for endogeneity control and both fixed and random effect models are adopted for the robustness test.

Board gender diversity reduces firms' internationalization speed, and the negative effect between board gender diversity and internationalization speed is stronger when the average age of female directors is older and weaker when female directors have international experience or financial background.

First, Chinese firms need to increase or decrease board gender diversity to match the board to firms' internationalization strategy. Increasing board gender diversity may be a more appropriate choice for firms that are expanding rapidly internationally, and vice versa. Second, when introducing female directors to international firms, it is essential to address other characteristics of these directors beyond their gender.

First, the authors contribute to the literature on board gender diversity using Chinese manufacturing firms as our research sample, which provides new insights into the economic consequences of increasing the number of female directors. Second, this research contributes to the literature on firms' internationalization speed. Third, the authors capture in more detail the economic consequences of increasing board gender diversity in the context of China.

Previous studies employing the behavioral theory of the firm have not explicitly taken the roles of decision makers and corporate governance into consideration. The purpose of this paper is to fill in this gap by integrating CEO overconfidence and discretion into the performance feedback mechanism.

Financial data were collected from 1,730 Chinese listed companies in the period 2011–2015. Firm-level patent application data were collected for 1988–2015 to measure firm patent application rhythm. Hypothesis testing relied on the fixed effect panel data model.

There is a positive relationship between performance discrepancy and a firm’s patent application rhythm. CEO overconfidence will weaken this positive relationship. The negative moderating effect of CEO overconfidence will be less pronounced when CEO discretion is high.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first empirical study that investigates the roles of CEO overconfidence and discretion in shaping the performance feedback mechanism.