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The purpose of this article is to develop a contextualized definition of the phenomenon of rapidly internationalizing ventures (RIVs) ‐ such as born globals or international new ventures ‐ building upon the commonly noted dimensions of internationalization: speed, degree and scope.

The study builds on a theory informed review of 62 empirical studies on RIVs from the USA and the European Union and an empirical survey among 103 academics in the field of international entrepreneurship.

After specifying the core characteristics of RIVs (speed, degree, and scope of internationalization), it is shown that the discrepancies in definitions result in a dysfunctional fragmentation of empirical results. Thus, research on the phenomenon of RIVs urgently needs contextualized definitions because the three core characteristics are context‐sensitive, and will therefore manifest themselves differently across contexts.

The paper contributes to international entrepreneurship research by introducing a feasible strategy for defining RIVs which ensures the identification of the very same phenomenon across different contexts, thus bridging the gap between different research contexts and enabling a common body of knowledge to evolve.

This insight is particularly important for identifying, analyzing and understanding how managers in RIVs recognize and exploit opportunities in a global sphere and what drives their behaviour and development paths with regard to international activities.

Based upon the theoretically‐driven identification of the core characteristics of RIVs, the paper formulates the concept of contextualized definitions which enable researchers to identify the phenomenon within any specific context. These relative definitions are suitable for identifying the very same phenomenon in diverse contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure level of 35 international banks across the world at the end of 2013 and analyse the changes in their disclosure patterns compared to 2005 from the institutional perspective.

Content analysis of international banks’ web-sites and CSR reports.

As expected, CSR disclosure scores of international banks in 2013 were significantly larger than in 2005. Despite addressing the legitimacy gap after the 2008 crisis, significant room for improvements remained in the context of sustainable products, implementation of environmental management policies and introduction of CSR initiatives (the latter especially for Northern American banks). Although the transnational context had contributed to the gradual convergence of CSR disclosure scores, the existence of differing national and organisational contexts had maintained some of the diversity across banks.

Content analysis approach used limits the possibilities to objectively grasp the depth of CSR and the sample remains biased towards larger international banks headquartered in Europe.

Stakeholders should remain vary of “window-dressing” attempts and reward only those banks that actually contribute to the society.

Intergovernmental organisations should continue to develop both new and already existing financial sector CSR initiatives to improve the stability of the global financial sector.

Previous studies have not investigated international banks’ CSR disclosures on broader global samples during the post-2008-crisis period and have not considered the institutional context of their CSR.

Global focus on reforming teachers has resulted in the inclusion of multiple survey questions about teachers’ professional learning activities in large-scale international studies. A cross-national analysis of these survey data will likely enhance our understanding and inform the future direction regarding teacher professional development policy and practice. Yet we do not know whether these surveys measure the key features and their contextual factors of teachers’ professional learning activities to allow a systematic cross-national analysis. Based on international and U.S. literature, I develop a conceptual model of teachers’ professional learning activities in global context and analyze relevant survey items used in three major international studies – TIMSS, PIRLS, and TALIS. I conclude the chapter with a discussion of the coverage of these survey items and a direction for improving data collections of teachers’ professional learning activities in large-scale international studies.

Because of its omission of social influences, conventional animosity research has failed to sufficiently consider consumption context. To address this limitation, this research constitutes two interrelated parts: (a) investigating how normative influences (value-expressive and utilitarian influences) shape consumers’ animosity attitudes and purchase intentions; and (b) building on the normative influence perspective and separating consumption context into purchase (online vs. offline) and usage (private vs. public) contexts. The goal was to examine under the condition of preference conflict, how consumption contexts with different degrees of behavioral exposure affect purchase decisions.

One pretest, one survey and one experiment were conducted to empirically validate the proposed research model.

In an international crisis, consumers’ attitudes and behaviors were socially determined. Moreover, the online purchase with private usage (offline purchase with public usage) condition resulted in the highest (lowest) level of purchase intention.

This research pioneers in the animosity literature to identify the possibility of preference conflict in a situational international crisis, and to more delicately separate the conventional consumption context into purchase and usage contexts.

International strategy literature has shown that market context varies in terms of importance to international operations and competition. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of market context in influencing the relationship between internationalization and performance.

Using cluster analysis, this study categorizes market context into two distinct groups: global and multidomestic. Later, it investigates the internationalization‐performance relationship for 263 firms distributed across two market contexts.

Support for an inverted U‐shaped relationship was found in the case of market contexts which have global characteristics, while a U‐shaped relationship was found in the market contexts which have multidomestic characteristics. Additionally, findings indicate that the moderating influence of diversification on the internationalization‐performance relationship varies by the market context of the firm.

The paper seeks to contribute to one of the most critical issues in the international strategy literature, namely, the linkage between internationalization and firm performance. While many studies have been conducted on the topic of internationalization and performance, specific research linking market context and the internationalization‐performance relationship has been lacking. The paper's findings offer strong support to the notion that the nature of the relationship between internationalization and performance varies by market context. Implications for managerial and researchers are presented.

The purpose of this study is to provide a foundational understanding of the internationalization of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the context of renewable energy markets. The focus is on exploring and identifying the managerial-, firm- and environmental-level antecedents to their international expansion, which also furthers the understanding of the distinct SME’s internationalization context within the renewable energy market.

The study adopts a qualitative multiple case study approach in a Finnish SME context and identifies the antecedents’ relative prominence at the managerial, firm and environmental levels.

The findings indicate that, although internationalization antecedents of renewable energy SMEs differ owing to market forces such as trends, networks and changing regulatory policies, they share antecedents similar to those of SMEs in other industries.

The main limitation of this study is its single-country home market empirical context. Future studies should expand analysis to different regulatory and regional environments.

To the authors’ knowledge, there are few studies that explore the antecedents of SMEs’ internationalization, especially in the renewable energy market context. Hence, this study contributes to the international business and entrepreneurship literature by illustrating the fundamental managerial-, firm- and environmental-level antecedents to the internationalization of SMEs operating in the renewable energy business. In addition, it highlights the peculiarities of renewable energy SMEs’ internationalization, suggesting that extant research on SMEs’ internationalization has not adequately captured the intricacies present in the internationalization of renewable energy enterprises.

Drawing on Resource-based Theory, the purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the effect of International Strategic Brand Management (SBM) on export performance within the Business-to-Business (B2B) context. To be able to purposely assess the relationship, this paper also sets out to discover what antecedent international resources, (financial resources) and international capabilities (market information, branding and marketing planning) contribute to the ability of B2B exporters to effectively manage their brands abroad.

A mixed method firm-level approach was employed. First, a qualitative study of 34 in-depth interviews explored the focal inter-relationships and constructs identified within the literature. A survey of 208 successful UK exporters was then conducted and the results were analysed using structured equation modelling.

The results confirm that certain marketing capabilities (branding and marketing planning) are advantageous antecedents to the employment of effective SBM in foreign markets which, in turn, leads to increased financial and market performance internationally.

This paper outlines practical brand management considerations managers need to account for to achieve effective exporting. Practitioners are advised to prioritise the development of robust international branding and marketing planning capabilities which can enable them to exploit their limited financial resources for optimal benefits. Furthermore, by developing these capabilities, firms can focus on the essence of their brand and communicate their brand image through the effective strategic management of their brand to business customers, evoking positive brand associations, enhanced perceived brand value and the achievement of increased export performance.

This paper is the first to focus on international SBM as the deterministic factor leading to improved B2B export performance. An innovative framework is offered which positions the pivotal role of International SBM as the central focus. The construct for international branding capabilities is extended specifically for use in the B2B domain.

This study examines the relationship between knowledge-sharing activities of the firm and its innovation capability. It also investigates the moderating impact of the firms' absorptive capacity on the relationship between knowledge sharing and firm innovation capability from the cross-subsidiary perspective in the international market environment.

This study reviewed the literature from the areas of knowledge management, international market and innovation management. Through the literature review, absorptive capacity theory and dynamic capability view (DCV) theory, a conceptual model has been developed. This model has been validated using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique with 612 respondents from 16 multinational firms from different countries.

The study finds that knowledge-sharing activities across subsidiaries of multinational firms are important for product and process innovation. Firms’ absorptive capacity also impacts the relationship between firms' knowledge-sharing activities and their different dynamic capabilities, such as sensing, seizing and transforming. The study also finds that firms' innovation capability positively impacts their competitiveness.

This study provides valuable inputs to the management of multinational firms to recognize the importance of knowledge-sharing activities across their different subsidiaries in the international marketing knowledge management (MKM) context.

The study adds to the literature on knowledge management, international market and firms' innovation capability. As the study examines the knowledge-sharing activities across different subsidiaries of multinational firms, especially in the context of process and product innovation, it is considered unique. The study also provides a unique validated model.

Purpose and Methodology – Championing a shared vision and strategy for informed learning (INFL) as an approach to information literacy (IL) education (ILE) centers on establishing a common understanding of IL/INFL that is sensitive to the variation in the ways stakeholders perceive their information context and conceptualize IL. Accordingly, the purpose of this chapter is to examine findings from a recent phenomenographic study of conceptions of IL that captures the understanding of IL held across multiple stakeholder groups in an international school community (Cunningham, 2017) and to use these findings to revisit Bruce’s (2008) RACER framework as a compass to champion INFL throughout an organization.

Findings and Originality – The phenomenographic study found that stakeholders did not hold one singular conception of IL but rather they shared a series of conceptions of IL to varying degrees, and that the variation in the ways IL was conceptualized prevailed across three continuums namely the individual-collective, affective-cognitive, and competency–personal mastery continuums. Furthermore, the comparative analysis of the series of conceptions of IL created the opportunity to develop a model of the common ground of conceptual understanding of IL thereby making an original contribution to knowledge. By undertaking a comparative analysis of this common ground model of IL with Bruce’s conceptions of IL/INFL and RACER framework for championing IL, the outcome is to present a new IL “without borders” model offering a blended strategic approach to advancing INFL/ILE based on a more representative understanding of the ways stakeholder groups perceive their information context and conceptualize IL.

This paper contributes to studies on the relationship between dynamic capabilities (DCs) and performance by showing how domain-specific DCs – international dynamic marketing capabilities (IDMCs) – affect the international performance of exporting firms in the context of extreme environmental dynamism – during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors focus on a sample of 277 exporting manufacturers from the post-transition economy of Poland. The authors use hierarchical multiple regression analysis to test this study's hypotheses.

This study's findings show that deployment of IDMCs by export manufacturers in the context of environmental jolts contributes to better performance, and this relationship is mediated by adaptation to foreign markets and product development capability. Additionally, this study's results reveal that the significant and positive indirect effect of IDMCs on international performance (through mediators) is, however, weakened under conditions of extreme environmental dynamism.

The limitations pertain to the cross-sectional nature of this study and the research sample, characterised by the dominance of export manufacturers of final products, the dominance of manufacturers operating in the business-to-business sector, or in the business-to-business and business-to-customer sectors simultaneously.

The study provides suggestions to managers on how to build resilience in international markets during turbulent times. These activities involve investments in IDMCs that support activities centred around product development and adaptation to foreign markets.

The novel construct of IDMCs is introduced and operationalized. The study empirically tests the direct and indirect relationship between IDMCs and performance contingent upon extreme environmental dynamism. The results demonstrate the boundary conditions for the effectiveness of these domain-specific DCs in such a research setting.