Early and rapidly internationalizing ventures: Similarities and differences between classifications based on the origina
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Early and rapidly internationalizing ventures: Similarities and differences between classifications based on the original international new venture and born global literatures Tage Koed Madsen
Published online: 20 December 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012
Abstract The novel contribution of this article is that it compares classifications of early and rapidly internationalizing firms based on the original literature on International New Ventures (classification method based on speed and scope of internationalization) as well as the original literature on Born Globals (classification method based on speed and extent of internationalization). Evidence from a survey of almost 900 Danish manufacturers demonstrates that the two methods provide similar results with regard to overall patterns of internationalization, but that they classify individual firms quite differently. From a theoretical stance it is therefore recommended to incorporate a richer selection of indicators (aspects of speed, scope as well as extent) in order to secure higher comparability between studies. Keywords International new ventures . Born global firms . Internationalization processes . International entrepreneurship
Introduction The last decades have shown an increasing interest in firms that exhibit early and rapidly international development very close to their foundation. They have been labeled differently in various studies, e.g. Born Globals (Rennie 1993; Knight and Cavusgil 1996; Madsen and Servais 1997), high technology start-ups (Jolly et al. 1992), or International New Ventures (Oviatt and McDougall 1994). This type of firm and the ability of its entrepreneur(s) to create and develop an international firm is definitely an increasingly important research topic (Aspelund et al. 2007, Cesinger et al. 2012). It is obvious that the international development patterns of these firms are different from that of traditional exporters. Zahra (2005) notes, however, that little T. K. Madsen (*) Department of Marketing and Management, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmark e-mail: [email protected]
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attention has been devoted to the types of INVs proposed in the seminal article by Oviatt and McDougall (1994). A similar quest is expressed in the review article by Rialp et al. (2005) in which they urge that focus be placed on efforts to establish a greater and more robust empirical base in order to confirm or reject previous findings. Coviello and Jones (2004) as well as Aspelund et al. (2007) call for more rigorous and comparable definitions of the phenomenon in order to move forward the insight into these types of firms. This relates directly to the core contribution of the present article. As demonstrated in thorough reviews of empirical findings (e.g., Rialp et al. 2005; Aspelund et al. 2007; Keupp and Gassmann 2009; Cesinger et al. 2012), it is emphasized that comparisons across studies is extremely difficult because definitions of the phenomenon of early and rapidly internationaliz
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