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The purpose of this paper is to investigate several concepts of inward and outward internationalization and their impact on export performance in the context of Malaysian manufacturing exporting firms.

Mail survey was administered to gather data from the Malaysian manufacturing firms that have been identified to have business export trading to the major oil and gas producer countries in the Middle East. A total of 120 respondents were received and further analysis was tabulated.

Findings revealed that the outward internationalization is positively related to economic and non-economic measures of export performance. It indicates that an outward internationalization related to organizational capability has a major contribution to the export performance of Malaysian manufacturing and exporting firms. On the other hand, top management international orientation as an inward internationalization is negatively and significantly associated with economic measures, but not in the non-economic measures of the export performance.

The cross-sectional nature of this study may have limitations with respect to examining the direction and causality of some of the variables. The findings are limited to Malaysian manufacturing firms exporting to targeted markets. The significant of this study emanates from its expected theoretical implications to knowledge and practical implications to business and public organization. It lends support to the internationalization theory and contributes to a firm’s performance and enhances their export marketing knowledge with useful implications for international and relationship marketing.

The results support the proposition that internationalization of firms from emerging nations are dependent on learning, acquiring and applying the knowledge from other firms particularly from firms originating from advanced developed nations.

The purpose of this paper is to show how the inward‐outward dynamics in the internationalisation of Baltic banks have led towards higher incorporation into Nordic banking groups and subsequently towards diminishing autonomy.

The paper presents two case studies, which characterise the evolution of international inward‐outward connections in two major Baltic banking groups – Hansabank Group and Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) Group.

Acquisitions by Swedish banks in 1998 had a different impact on the internationalisation of the two leading Baltic banking groups. Inward‐outward connections in the case of the Hansabank Group meant that they obtained strong autonomy in controlling Swedbank's activities in the Baltic. In the case of Eesti Ühispank, Latvijas Unibanka and Vilniaus Bankas inward‐outward linkages meant that they lost autonomy about the further expansion to other Baltic countries and were eventually transformed into Baltic subsidiaries of SEB. These differences in strategies between Swedish banks could be explained by the background of the companies (especially their previous internationalisation experience). However, latest developments point towards growing similarities between two groups via incorporation of Hansabank into Swedbank group.

The case study has inherently limited the capacity to offer generalisations concerning other service companies.

These results indicate the inward‐outward development pattern of international service companies. The managers of similar companies can use this development pattern to project the dynamics of market entry strategies.

The paper introduces original experience allocation framework in the context of inward‐outward internationalisation and outlines the dynamic nature of the strategic relations between the foreign owner and its subsidiary.

The purpose of this study is to examine specific use of strategic alliances and acquisitions for Chinese firms to catch‐up technologically and to enhance their internationalization competence.

The paper offers a conceptual analysis of internationalization through either FDI or strategic alliances. This is a novel approach, as most of the extant literature tends to view internationalization solely through the prism of FDI. The empirical evidence presented in the paper is twofold. First, it analyses empirical data on strategic alliances and acquisitions retrieved from Thomson SDC database, a premium business directory. Second, it also approaches the topic qualitatively, by offering a case study of Chery Automobile Co. Ltd, a Chinese company that has relied heavily on strategic alliances in its internationalization strategy.

First, the study finds statistical evidence of a rising trend of formation of outward strategic alliances by Chinese firms. Second, the authors demonstrate the specific benefit of strategic alliances for Chinese firms to technically catch up and enhance internationalization competence. It is found that strategic alliances give Chinese firms opportunities to learn from front‐runners in terms of gaining technological capabilities, and there are advantages in tagging developing and advanced markets. The main findings suggest that the internationalization of Chinese firms is in a process in which they gradually integrate technology and marketing/logistics alliances. This approach allows for sufficient time to learn and absorb new skills and technology. Moreover, Chery's case indicates that a series of successful international strategic alliances could also generate tremendous bargaining power for Chinese firms when undertaking subsequent international activities.

This paper contributes to the small but growing body of literature on the internationalization of Chinese companies, their technological catching‐up activities. Unlike previous studies that mainly focus on state‐owned Chinese firms' internationalisation through outward FDI (such as M&A), the paper particularly contributes to the exploration of strategic alliances' effectiveness for private and latecomer firms' internationalization. Empirically, the data analysis and case study reflects the benefits for Chinese firms to enter into strategic alliances with European firms in order to enter into European market and to acquire technological capabilities.

This study aims to explore subsidiaries' diversification strategies, both internationally and with regard to their product offerings. The study seeks to examine, at the subsidiary level, the relationships between subsidiary size, internationalization, production diversification, and performance.

Based on the archival data of an officially conducted survey, the study used ordered logit regression analysis to test its hypotheses using data from 920 Taiwanese subsidiaries in China.

The study's results revealed: larger subsidiaries tend to engage in internationalization and product diversification activities to a greater degree, and, as a result, tend to exhibit superior performance; and subsidiaries that pursue outward internationalization and that reinvest in related businesses enjoy enhanced performance.

This study examines Taiwanese firms that have one foreign subsidiary in China. Future research should examine larger firms with numerous foreign subsidiaries in developed countries, and should employ more fine‐grained measurements of subsidiary size to provide a clearer picture of subsidiary‐specific advantages.

Unlike the existing literature, which has tended to take the perspective of the multinational corporation, this study examines internationalization and product diversification at the subsidiary level. By extending the resource‐based view to the subsidiary level, larger subsidiaries might be able to exploit their advantages so as to more successfully implement international and product diversification strategies and improve their performance in a host country.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how home institutions moderate the influence of internationalization, and the effect this has on the performance of stock-listed Chinese firms.

A sample of 118 stock-listed Chinese firms over the period 2006-2011 was considered, using the panel data method.

The results show that foreign ownership and region-specific marketization help firms reap the performance benefits of internationalization, while state ownership plays an insignificant role.

The findings may not hold for unlisted firms, service firms or firms from other emerging economies.

The study suggests that Chinese managers should take advantage of home country institutions to improve the effects of internationalization on performance.

This research suggests that the analysis of the performance consequences of internationalization should go beyond the nexus between internationalization and performance, and also consider the home institutional factors that may facilitate or constrain the focal relationship.

Existing research in firm internationalization tends to adopt the perspective of relatively fixed country specific advantages and disadvantages. However, firms operating from small developing countries may experience rapidly shifting country-specific advantages due to industrial policy interventions. These changes influence the internal configuration and, ultimately, the internationalization paths of firms, a factor that is not captured by current theory. Using a combination of a country case study and nested multiple firm cases, data were collected on how organizations internationalized from Trinidad and Tobago, a small developing country. Unlike the relatively deterministic outward patterns predicted by existing theories, analysis revealed both evolutionary and co-evolutionary trajectories of development. These outcomes suggest that as a country moves to more open economic environment, network connections in the form of supplier and institutional relationships are of increased value for firms seeking to enter external markets.

This paper aims to seek to demonstrate that a non-scientific approach to policy design causes policymakers to persist in the development and use of conventional and inefficient “top-down” policies. This paper takes the case of the design of official pro-internationalization policy, intended to promote internationalization through outward investment, to reveal inadequacies and inefficiencies in policy design. Through an analysis of the merits of introducing a “bottom-up” approach, it also aims to show how policy redesign would better yield the desired specific and effective impacts sought by policymakers.

A framework was developed, comprising a set of real policy measures, two indexes to quantify the alignment between government policies and firms’ strategies and a regression model to test the impact of the misalignment on firm performance. This framework uses primary empirical data.

The results are obtained through an item-by-item comparison between use and revealed, or perceived, importance of each type of public support and then, through the indexes, which rank the different types of incentives according to their importance and use. Analysis of these suggests that some measures could be more efficient, and that firms with higher levels of foreign market commitment tend to be more aligned with public policy, and benefit from it most, while those firms with a lower degree of internationalization are the least well served by policy support measures.

These results identify systematic weaknesses in policy design and point to the reasons for these weaknesses. The findings suggest that governments tend to craft “top-down” policy, based on high-level presumptions about the nature of all firms’ strategies towards internationalization and international expansion. We propose that these presumptions result from flawed evaluations of policy effectiveness overly influenced by existing foreign investors, to the detriment of the true and intended strategies of the actual target group of the least internationalized firms. It is concluded that to improve both the efficiency and the effectiveness of policy actions, the traditional “top-down” intervention paradigm of policy-making should be complemented by policy designed from the “bottom-up”, making use of reliable information about all firms’ strategies, and taking care to better identify natural target groups of firms according to their existing or potential resources and capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the assumptive concept of internationalization because it is discussed and understood in the international business (IB) literature. This paper develops a framework to reconceptualize internationalization in the context of global value chain (GVC) and sustainability. Based on this conceptual framework, this paper aims to formulate interrelated propositions to define internationalization.

This paper reviews the assumptive conceptualization process based on empirical evidence obtained through qualitative, illustrative and descriptive content analysis methods. Through the collection and qualitative content analysis of milestone papers, this paper demonstrates the fragmentation of the concept of internationalization. This paper reviews the evolving nature of the concept of internationalization, analyzing the accumulative issues associated with defining internationalization, as well as its potential future development.

This paper introduces a dynamic perspective on the evolving nature of the concept of internationalization and argue there is a need to reconceptualize internationalization in the context of the GVC and sustainability.

After reviewing the context in which the term “internationalization” has been applied and taking into consideration the current trends in the IB, this paper formulates an updated definition of the term internationalization. This paper offers a viewpoint on the future direction of the concept of internationalization in light of the growing importance of sustainability within IB.

The HRM literature provides various typologies of the HR managers’ roles in organizations. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the roles and required competencies of HR managers in Slovenian multinational companies change when these companies enter the international arena.

The authors explored the total population of 25 Slovenian multinational companies (MNCs) operating in Serbia. In these companies the authors conducted interviews with 16 expatriates working in branches in Serbia, sent questionnaires to the CEOs, and conducted a survey of 50 HR managers and interviews with 15 of them. The authors used a triangulation approach and analyzed the results by multivariate methods and content analysis.

The authors found that the complexity of HR managers’ roles, and expectations of their competencies, increases with an increasing level of internationalization of companies. Orientation to people and conflict resolution are seen as elementary competencies needed in all stages of internationalization. The key competence is seen to be strategic thinking that, according to CEOs and expatriates, goes hand in hand with cultural sensitivity, openness to change and a comprehensive understanding of the international environment and business processes.

These results can potentially be used for assessing the HRM roles and competencies in different stages of company internationalization, especially MNCs operating in the ex-communist states of Europe, and will help HR managers to support expatriates, CEOs and other employees working in branches abroad more efficiently.

This study contributes to the review and evaluation of the quite limited research on HR managers’ roles and competencies in MNCs. It focuses on MNCs and outward internationalization in the Central and Eastern European region. It contributes to studies of the HR managers’ roles and competencies and is the first study to establish a set of roles and competencies for HR managers in Slovenian MNCs.

Little research has been done on the emergence of companies that engage in increasingly digital entrepreneurship with digitalized value-chain activities. The purpose of this paper is provide a consistent picture of how value-chain digitalization affects companies’ internationalization and international marketing (IM), and give insights regarding the influence of the degree of value-chain digitalization on the level of internationalization.

This paper takes an explorative approach based on a literature review and uses a conceptual analysis and research framework to empirically classify digitalized/-ing companies.

This study finds ways to classify the internationalization of companies according to the degree of digitalization of their value-chain. The more these companies use internet hardware infrastructure and web and mobile software technologies, the better they can leverage their foreign assets, achieving a higher share of foreign sales with relatively limited foreign assets.

The results enrich the literature on internationalization and IM and entrepreneurship to explain companies that are distinctly digitalized across their value-chain activities.

This research provides evidence for companies regarding digitalization of the value-chain to facilitate entrepreneurial opportunities and offer rapid, efficient and affordable internationalization.

This research tackles a novel phenomenon by analyzing companies’ value-chain digitalization in relation to their degree of internationalization and IM.