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To stimulate further research aimed at understanding how value can be cocreated by participants in digital ecosystems, this paper draws attention to new ventures as focal actors in innovation ecosystems orchestrated by hub firms.

This is a conceptual article that imports the notion of network oscillation (a pattern of brokerage-closure-brokerage) from social network studies to the conversation on digital ecosystems.

One potential pattern that a new venture may pursue to increase its prospects of cocreating value in an innovation ecosystem includes: (1) brokerage to gain managerial attention from a business unit of the hub firm, (2) switching to closure to attract attention from the wider hub firm (e.g. headquarters) and (3) reverting to brokerage to pursue synergistic network expansion opportunities from the wider interfirm ecosystem.

The exploratory ideas in this paper can help advance both entrepreneurship and information systems research.

This paper offers preliminary ideas on egocentric network dynamics associated with a new venture partnering with a large ecosystem hub firm. Such a perspective is appropriate since achieving value creation through active partnering requires building and strengthening ties over time across the hub firm's ecosystem.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether subnational market-supporting institutions in Indian states affect the likelihood of Indian multinational enterprises (MNEs) to undertake acquisitions in advanced economies (AEs) rather than emerging economies (EEs) and, if so, which mechanism – institutional fostering or escapism – underlies the phenomenon.

The paper uses a logistic regression model on a dataset of 647 firm-level cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) undertaken by Indian MNEs during the period 2010–2016.

The paper finds support for the institutional escapism mechanism, as opposed to the institutional fostering mechanism, underlying Indian MNEs’ acquisitions in AEs (rather than EEs). That is, firms headquartered in Indian states where market-supporting institutions (such as economic liberalization and efficiency of legal systems) are weak are more likely to undertake CBAs in AEs than in EEs as an escapist response to weak subnational institutions at home.

The paper highlights the relevance of the mainstream international business (IB) concept of emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) internationalization to critical IB scholarship by examining subnational institutional influences on EMNEs’ foreign market choice between AEs and EEs. In particular, by providing evidence for the institutional escapism mechanism which has potential negative socioeconomic consequences in the region of the investing firm, the paper adds to critical IB research which places great emphasis on the examination of inequalities and draws attention to the EMNE context as a suitable setting for further research on internationalization from a critical perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic review of literature on corporate engagement with start-ups (CEWS) by identifying the modes, contexts, antecedents, barriers and outcomes. As an emerging field, CEWS presently has no such review available which will help in building consensus within the field and shape future research directions.

The study followed a two-phased systematic review of literature. Three research databases (i.e. Web of Science, ScienceDirect and SCOPUS) were accessed to gather and conduct the review. Of the total 379 papers retrieved, 63 total relevant papers were studied and analysed. The exhaustive review of literature helped to uncover the contexts, perspectives, antecedents, outcomes and barriers reported across the different modes of CEWS.

The study highlighted the five prominent modes of CEWS favoured by large corporations and start-ups. It found that the large corporations and start-ups associate with one another on the basis of complementarities of activities, resources and motives to pursue their strategic orientations. The engagements also face barriers on the ground, such as incompatibility of goals, power imbalances, cultural differences and weak engagement plans. Most important contexts seen were the high-technology industries in the developed economies like the USA and Europe. It also found that ecosystem creation, accessing innovation and corporate strategy have been preferred as the most productive modes of CEWS in the literature.

This review provides practitioners with a detailed list of the modes and drivers of CEWS. Subsequently, the barriers that need to be managed to successfully execute a specific mode of engagement. This shall enable the practitioners in developing and adopting the best practices while engaging with the start-ups to better facilitate the outcomes of CEWS.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no systematic literature review available in the domain of CEWS – thus, this study makes an important methodological contribution to the field. By consolidating the fragmented yet growing knowledge on CEWS, the study presents a detailed understanding of what drives and obstructs the engagement between large corporations and start-ups.

Purpose – In this chapter, we seek to extend understanding of the ‘international’ dimension of comparative international entrepreneurship (IE), by undertaking exploratory empirical research within a global industry viz. the software industry, and focusing on two local ecologies, namely a regional agglomeration (Bangalore, India) and less developed niche (Lahore, Pakistan) about which little is known.

Methodology – On the basis of in-depth interviews in Bangalore and Lahore, exemplar case studies from both sub-national regions are presented, which highlight the relative significance of local milieu and ethnic ties in IE.

Findings – The global nature of the software industry and the central role of the innovative milieu in the USA have important implications for the comparative IE literature. These refer particularly to the coordination and integration of the entrepreneurial processes of opportunity discovery, evaluation and exploitation across frontiers. Close inter-milieu links provide the opportunity to access complementary assets and business networks. While Indians have influenced the development of Silicon Valley, their ties with Bangalore seem primarily to be based on hard-nosed business relations. But in relation to Pakistan, while the US milieu is critical for all aspects of the entrepreneurial process, closed networks may be a barrier to long-term growth.

Originality/value of chapter – Where our study goes beyond the literature is by highlighting the role of cross-border linkages between milieux.

The accumulation of knowledge and learning by firms has been identified as being critical to their internationalisation. This paper aims to explore the knowledge assimilation processes of rapidly internationalising small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs).

This is a qualitative enquiry in two stages. First, four case studies were selected from firms that were participating in an internationalisation programme run by Scottish Enterprise, the regional development agency. Data collection involved semi‐structured interviews with chief executive officers (CEOs) and programme providers, and archival data. Second, two focus groups were held with six CEOs participating in the programme.

The findings indicate that knowledge sharing is important for rapidly internationalising SMEs and that firms adopted high levels of formality in assimilating knowledge. Two key aspects of formality were identified as important; formal planned events to share explicit and tacit knowledge and the codification of tacit to explicit knowledge. Knowledge may be assimilated less formally by the retention of tacit knowledge as tacit, while utilising elements of formality. The paper finds that learning for internationalisation can be transferred to support domestic growth.

It is important for firms to develop appropriate knowledge assimilation processes within their management systems to support internationalisation. The CEO and management team need to take the lead in marshalling commitment to learning processes and in cultivating an organisational culture that is supportive of learning.

This research contributes to international entrepreneurship by providing insights into the knowledge assimilation processes employed by rapidly internationalising SMEs to manage the tensions between the need for greater formality to be efficient at learning, and informality to enable speedy decision making.

This volume of Progress in International Business Research comprises of a selection of 12 competitive papers from the 34th EIBA (European International Business Academy) annual conference, which was held in Tallinn, Estonia in December 2008 with the theme “International Business and the Catching-up Economies: Challenges and Opportunities”. It addresses two main issues – (1) the internationalization process and (2) the role of knowledge and innovation for internationalization – that are important in the current economic slowdown both for catching-up and for other economies, scholars, and practitioners.

This volume is the outcome of the 33rd European International Business Academy (EIBA) conference held at the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Catania (Italy). This conference brought together more than 300 scholars from around the world to discuss theoretical and empirical issues in international business (IB), as well as their consequences and challenges to IB scholars and policy-makers. Organized around 10 thematic tracks, the conference is the annual forum for discussing major research issues in the IB realm. This volume is a collection of the best papers, which, selected through a blind refereeing process for presentation at the conference, make significant contributions by providing fresh new perspectives on a variety of relevant topics.

In this paper, I review and evaluate the concept of subsidiary initiative, and I discuss how theorizing about the multinational corporation (MNC) in general has been informed by studies focusing on subsidiary initiative and related subsidiary-level issues. In the second part of the paper, I discuss some of the trends underway in the world of business that are influencing the nature and amount of subsidiary initiative observed in MNCs. Most of these seem likely to make subsidiary initiative more common, though some of them will favor externally focused initiatives while others will favor internally focused ones.