On the Internationalization Process of Firms: A Critical Analysis
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INTRODUCTION More than a decade ago, Wind [1979] described international marketing as an area in which empirical work by practitioners is often more advanced and insightful than academic contributions. Recently, Ford and Leonidu [1991] have concluded that theoretical and methodological shortcomings have led to incomplete and/or inconsistent insights in the field of international marketing.A possible explanationfor these shortcomings is that the academics have been too preoccupied with describing international marketing problems. As a result, little endeavour has been devoted to theory construction and evaluation. This, if true, is a phenomenon that international marketing shares with other sciences that have not reached the level of maturity in their theory development. The internationalization process of exporting firms has been subjected to widespread empirical research (Cavusgil and Godiwalla [1982]; Dichtl et al. [1984]), and seems to benefit from a general acceptance in the literature (cf. Bradley [1991]; Reid and Rosson [1987]; Welch and Luostarinen [1988]). However, in order to secure further development and refinement,
*OttoAndersenis associateprofessorat AgderStateCollege,Kristiansand, Norway. His researchand publicationsfocus on exportbehaviorand economic and organizationalanalysis of small- and medium-sizedfirms. Thanks to Marjo-Riitta Rynning and Sigurd V. Troye for their comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. Thanks also to three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. The author is, however, solely responsible for any content and remaining errors. Received: February 1992; Revised: July & October 1992; Accepted: October 1992.
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JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONALBUSINESS STUDIES, SECOND QUARTER 1993
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the internationalization process models should be subjected to a critical evaluation. The present article is an inquiry into two ways of describing the firm's internationalizationprocess: (1) The models developed by Johanson, Vahlne and Wiedersheim-Paul-which will be characterized as the Uppsala Internationalization Model (U-M), and (2) The Innovation-Related Internationalization Models (I-M), focusing on internationalization as an innovation for the firm. First, a short description of each type of model will be given. Then some criteria for theory evaluation will be presented. Next, the two types of models will be discussed on the basis of these criteria. Finally, a few measures for improving the internationalizationmodels will be discussed. THE INTERNATIONALIZATIONPROCESS OF THE FIRMS The Uppsala Internationalization Model (U-M) The internationalizationprocess of the individualfirm is most closely associated with the research of Johanson and Wiedersheim-Paul and Johanson and Vahlne. Their work has probably also been the inspiration for the development of the Innovation-Related Internationalization Models. Johanson and Wiedersheim-
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