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Internationalization is of high relevance and has been discussed intensively. However, different internationalization paths have been proposed by theoretical models and have been observed in reality. In this study, we examine the internationalization path of 52 German firms over a period of ten years using comprehensive and rich data on all new ventures established by these companies within this period. We find four distinct patterns of internationalization and propose a stage model of internationalization based on these findings. Our results show different challenges for managers depending on the stage of internationalization and render interesting starting points for further research.

Distances between contexts that a multinational enterprise (MNE) is familiar with and those that it is not familiar with do not hinder the MNE from becoming global. In this sense, distance serves as a barrier between an MNE’s global intentions and its regional realizations. (Multi)regional strategies are a possible expression of an MNE’s inability to approach distances. Considering the managerially relevant distances is essential to analyze the internationalization and the resulting (multi)regional strategies. A deeper understanding of how distance works requires linking distance to micro-foundations. Besides bounded rationality, bounded reliability opens the conceptual pathway toward a deeper understanding of internationalization and (multi)regional strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to address how firms adapt their product and geographic diversification as a response to foreign rivals penetrating their domestic market by adopting a behavioral perspective to understand firm-level strategic responses to foreign entry.

The study proposes that strategic responses to foreign entry selected by domestic incumbents have both a framing component and a related, strategic choice component, with the latter including changes in product and geographic market diversification (though other more business strategy-related responses are also possible, e.g. in product pricing and marketing). This study tests a set of hypotheses building on panel data of large US firms.

The study finds, in accordance with our predictions, that domestic incumbents reduce their product and geographic diversification when facing an increase in import penetration. However, when increased market penetration by foreign firms takes the form of FDI rather than imports, the corporate response appears to be an increase in product and geographic diversification, again in line with our predictions.

The study develops a new conceptual framework that is grounded in prospect theory, but builds on recent insights from mainstream international strategic management studies (Bowen and Wiersema, 2005; Wiersema and Bowen, 2008).

“First principles” of international business (IB) thinking should be applied systematically when assessing the functioning of internationally operating firms. The most important first principle is that entrepreneurially oriented firms seek to create, deliver and capture economic value through cross-border linkages. Such linkages invariably require complementary resources from a variety of parties with idiosyncratic vulnerabilities to be meshed. Starting from first principles allows bringing to light evidence-based insight. For instance, most companies are not global and even the world’s largest firms rarely change the location of key strategic functions. International new ventures (INVs), emerging economy multinational enterprises (MNEs) and family firms face unique vulnerabilities but also command resources that can be used to create value across borders. The quest for “optimal” international diversification appears to be a futile academic exercise, and in emerging economies with institutional voids, relational networks – and more broadly, informal institutions – are unlikely to function as scalable substitutes for formal institutions. In global value chains (GVCs), many lead firms and their partners have been able to craft governance mechanisms that reduce bounded rationality and bounded reliability challenges, and it is also critical for them to use governance as a tool to create entrepreneurial space. Finally, many of the world’s largest companies have been on successful trajectories toward reducing their climate change footprint for a few decades. But these firm-specific trajectories are fraught with challenges and cannot just be imposed via unilateral, macro-level targets decided upon by individuals and institutions lacking a clear understanding of innovation and capital expenditure processes in business.

Managerial intentionality has been assumed to be the most differentiating, but also the most neglected factor influencing internationalization. Although various scholars have emphasized its relevance, the key question still remains unanswered: What is managerial intentionality and why and how does it matter? Researchers share the view that internationalization paths are a joint outcome of environmental factors, path dependence and learning, and managerial intentionality. However, although managerial intentionality is argued to be an important factor, it is rather taken as a “given.” Therefore, we step back and take a closer look at its very nature and relevance for international business research.

Firms at the center of an organizational network may benefit from educating and building up competencies of their partners. For that reason, centers often seek to transfer knowledge from the center to partner firms. They even set up systems of inter‐organizational knowledge transfer to plan, to coordinate, and to control such transfers on a firm level instead of managing single knowledge transfer projects individually. However, little systematic attention has yet been paid to such systems on a firm level. This paper seeks to analyze the managerial mechanism to decide what knowledge to transfer to what partners.

To address this gap, data were gathered on nine leading multinational center firms. An explorative approach was adopted using case study research to look at the characteristics of network centers, network partners, knowledge, transfer channels, and programmes.

It was found that center firms offered knowledge transfer products to partners and set up portfolios of knowledge transfer programmes targeted at specific partner groups. There is further elaboration on fundamental decisions on the programmes' design, communication, access, and pricing.

The research contributes to shed light on how center firms manage knowledge transfer activities from the center to partners on the firm level and how they structure it in the form of programmes. Therefore, the paper does not focus on the management of knowledge transfer in particular partnerships or networks, but also considers interdependencies between individual knowledge transfer initiatives.

The aim of this paper is to explore whether and how the depth of a company's operations in a given host country influences how shareholders value further investments in that country. Here, depth means the extent of a company's presence, that is, a company's accumulated foreign direct investment (FDI) in a given country prior to the focal investment.

This paper develops a theoretical framework postulating that the value of an additional FDI in a given host country decreases to the extent to which it is redundant to a company's accumulated FDI in that country prior to the focal investment. Hypotheses are advanced and tested using a sample that encompasses the FDIs of 91 German MNEs over a 20‐year period from 1985 to 2004.

The empirical analysis shows that there is a negative relationship between depth of operations in a host country prior to the focal investment and the value that shareholders put on that investment. It is also found that the negative relationship is moderated by characteristics of the focal investment, as well as by characteristics of the country in which the additional investment is made.

The theoretical framework developed in this study provides a starting‐point for further research on the valuation effect of individual FDIs. This study focuses on cross‐border acquisitions mainly because the value effect of such FDI can be calculated using an event study approach. However, it is believed that testing this study's theoretical framework using other forms of FDI would yield interesting results.

This is among the few studies that investigate how a company's path of FDI in a given host country affects the value of additional FDI in that country.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights to the impact of acquisition experience from prior acquisitions on the performance of subsequent ones. The authors base the analysis on the concept of mindfulness which has recently gained increasing attention in organizational learning theory. The aim is to extend prior research on mindfulness in organizational learning by empirically addressing how mindfulness in knowledge transfer affects task performance in the context of a rare organizational event, i.e. an acquisition, and how it is moderated by the conditions surrounding that event.

Employing a path-related approach, the authors analyzed large acquisitions of multiple US acquirers in a sequence to be able to clearly identify feedback from preceding acquisitions on subsequent ones. The authors adopt individual acquisition events as the unit of analysis to demonstrate the effect of mindfulness on task performance, and follow the widely used approach of measuring acquisition performance by abnormal stock market returns around the time of an acquisition announcement.

The analysis reveals an alternating relationship between an acquirer's acquisition experience and its acquisition performance. This relationship is positively moderated by an acquirer's cash reserves and by the temporal spacing of its acquisitions, but negatively moderated by an acquirer's market-to-book value.

Path-related approaches are rarely used in the mergers & acquisitions literature. The paper is based on the concept of mindfulness and identifies an up to now unrecognized pattern in the performance of multiple acquisitions.