Internationalization theories

Globalization and virtual economy are external factors that drive companies to approach the global market from start up, giving birth to new studies on internationalization strategy, which represent an evolution of the classical stage models. According to the stage approach, companies start selling products in their home markets and then they sequentially look at new countries. Many firms do not follow incremental stage approach but is often reported that they start their international activities from their birth: they enter different country at once, approaching new markets for both exporting and sourcing. Debate in literature is still trying to define if the born global perspective is a new concept or a new label to indicate an old phenomenon. The study will go through a review and an analysis of the literature on market entry and sourcing strategy. The purpose of this paper is therefore to identify and categorize factors that drive companies’ choice towards the global approach instead of the stage approach.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively explore marketing issues for foreign industrial companies of large, small and medium size entering emerging markets (EMs), particularly transition economies in Eastern Europe. The vast majority of current studies about emerging markets focus only on defining suitable strategies related to large consumer goods corporations.

Design/methodology/approach
The research adopted a multiple case study approach. Five Italian companies belonging to different business-to-business industries that have entered emerging countries in Eastern Europe were selected for investigation.

Findings
Empirical analysis uncovered recurring issues related to: institutional factors causing market uncertainty and instability; difficulties in building a sales network; a need for product adaptation to guarantee satisfactory performance; choices related to communication, branding and trade fairs; and considerations about competition and first mover advantage. Results can be interpreted as an extension of the analysis of institutional voids by Khanna and Palepu (1997).

Research limitations/implications
The study is based on the analysis of five case studies of companies operating in specific emerging markets, namely in Eastern Europe Countries (EEc) Further research based on different samples and different emerging countries is needed before generalizing results.

Practical implications
The study shows that the main institutional void affecting business-to-business companies entering emerging markets (EEc) is the lack of locally developed sales and after-sales networks. This institutional void slows the entry process of business-to-business companies in EMs. Given these constraints, from the perspective of business-to-business SMEs, it may be fruitful to pursue niche positioning in EMs.

Originality/value
The study analyzes emerging markets opportunities and entry strategies from the business-to-business marketing perspective, uncovering the most critical issues.

Blockchain has a growing reputation as a disruptive and revolutionary technology. Although still at infancy, its potential applications in international business are self-evident, particularly smart contracts and the likely impact they may have on transactions costs. This paper explores how smart contracts might attenuate or eliminate various transaction costs, and the attendant effect on the internationalization of firms. Using transaction cost theory of the multinational firm, different transaction costs are identified, and the effect of smart contracts on these sources of transaction costs such as bounded rationality and opportunism are determined. Subsequently, we hypothesize the outcomes of these interactions on the internationalization of firms. While the tendency might be to assume that lower transaction costs might result in an abandonment of hierarchical governance for markets, however, because the firm must choose between the lower of transaction costs from markets and the internal costs of hierarchy, lower transaction costs from smart contracts might not necessarily result in a disinclination for foreign direct investment. The paper suggests streams for future research to empirically assess the effects of smart contracts on the Internationalization of firms.

—This paper develops and extended eclectic paradigm to fit the firm internationalization process with the real international business world. The approach is based on Dunning´s, introducing new concepts like mode of entry, international joint venture o international mergers and acquisitions. At the same time is presented a model to describe the Spanish international mergers and acquisitions in order to determinate the most important factor that influence in this type of foreign direct investment.

Internationalization theories suggest that enterprises from emerging and frontier markets will adopt different entry modes than those in advanced economies. Very few studies to date, however, examine the process of how multinational enterprises (MNEs) from frontier markets internationalize or evaluate which factors influence their mode of entry into global markets. This research investigates the internationalization strategies of Lusophone Africa MNEs from Angola and Mozambique, more specifically their entry mode, to expand the framework for entry mode strategies to include the motivations and issues of MNEs from emerging and frontier economies. Surveys, as well as in-depth, in-country, qualitative interviews reveal that these frontier and emerging market MNEs opted for equity-based investment strategies as their preferred mode of entry. A significant second group opted for e-commerce/e-business strategies, and direct and indirect exports. Finally, a smaller portion of the interviewees chose Greenfield investment as a mode of entry. Many of these MNEs could be classified as born global/INV.

In the wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic, most traditional postsecondary internationalization models built around inbound and outbound student mobility are no longer viable. Although the role of mobility as a visible and easily quantifiable manifestation of an institution’s international activities has been greatly diminished, both inbound and outbound mobility will likely continue to form the core of international programs in the foreseeable future – albeit less prominently. However, the current pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of traditional programs to a range of geopolitical forces out of any internationalization leader’s control. This realization now forces these leaders to reprioritize their efforts toward meaningful and sustainable on-campus programs and curricular changes in the interest of preparing students for the immense complexities of today’s global issues and an increasingly unknowable future.

This drastic shift “back home” demands that leaders embrace different competencies, priorities, attitudes, and behaviors and ensure that internationalization can be sustained in an equitable and socially responsive manner. To this end, our paper interrogates and extends traditional concepts of leadership in international higher education and proposes a shift from primarily instrumental strategies toward organizational and curricular changes in the interest of preparing students for the complexities of today’s world. We outline specific leadership dispositions, attributes, and behaviors and propose guidelines for distributed, transformational, and instructional leadership in hopes that they will allow for better transdisciplinary collaboration and meaningful, holistic student engagement and learning with a focus on more accessible, equitable, and socially responsive practices.

The authors argue that both the Standards of Professional Practice proposed by the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA, 2016) and NAFSA’s International Education Professional Competencies (2017) address advocacy, equity and inclusion, and faculty, student, and community engagement, as well as interpersonal attributes that include intercultural proficiency and empathy. However, the reality of leading an international office often leaves little time to forge meaningful relationships or engage students and faculty. International education leaders further will benefit from developing a deeper understanding of various theoretical concepts to inform their leadership as scholar-practitioners (De Wit, 2017). These constructs allow leaders to better conceptualize and articulate extra and intra-institutional complexities and garner buy-in from a wider range of traditional and nontraditional stakeholders.
Therefore, established top-down leadership with a focus on bureaucratic, administrative, and outwardly-oriented tasks must yield to increasingly relational and inclusive practices and priorities that include community outreach, full integration of international and underserved communities, and the facilitation of impactful intercultural exchange. Refocusing international education efforts toward universally accessible on-campus learning requires that internationalization and institutional leaders jointly redefine what successful international and global learning looks like and establish metrics that account for the qualitative nature of personal growth, understanding of global interdependencies, and intercultural proficiencies. Finally, the authors encourage leaders to expand their understanding of international education to include local Indigenous communities.

This paper proposes three principal leadership frames for senior international officers and their teams to lead on-campus internationalization: distributed, transformational, and instructional. These three frames, when practiced in concert, promise to provide opportunities for all students to engage in formative and impactful international and global learning while addressing pervasive questions surrounding inclusive and equitable access to international education.

The core competencies required of internationalization leaders will likely remain the same in the foreseeable future. However, embracing the relational aspects of leading, empowering others to promote and support international and global learning on campus, and modeling the desired dispositions, attitudes, and behaviors of informed and culturally proficient global citizens promises to bring about more equitable, accessible, and just educational opportunities for all students.

The process of internationalization and globalization grants the curriculum with a global outlook and provokes a great feasibility for international student mobility and chance of employability globally; however, it poses threats, like brain drain, as Georgia is still a developing country and many skilled young people seek for better jobs and salaries abroad. The paper stresses the level of internationalization in Georgian HEIs after the implementation of reforms and tools of the Bologna process.

This paper investigates the relationship between the contextual factors related to the firm's decision-maker and the process of international strategic decision-making. The analysis has been conducted focusing on small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). Data for the research came from 111 usable responses to a survey on a sample of SME decision-makers in international field. The results of regression analysis indicate that the context variables, both internal and external, exerted more influence on international strategic decision making process than the decision-maker personality characteristics.

Several internationalization theories have been developed over the past few decades that have made great contributions in explaining enterprise internationalization and their mode of entry strategy. It has been suggested that the determinants of entry mode choice of enterprises from emerging and frontier markets differ from those of comparable enterprises from advanced economies. Literature review appears to indicate that there is a need to expand the framework for entry mode strategies to accommodate the expansion issues enterprises from emerging and frontier countries face in the global marketplace. Nevertheless, not much information and an acceptable conclusion have been made on how MNEs from frontier markets internationalize and what factors influence their choice of entry into those markets.
This study investigated the internationalization strategies of Lusophone Africa MNEs from Angola and Mozambique, more specifically their entry mode. Information was gathered through a survey of 29 MNE’s upper management respondents and subsequent face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 24 of them in their countries.
The results of this study suggest that most MNEs opted for equity-based investment strategies, mainly joint venture and M&E as their preferred mode of entry when internationalizing. A significant group of them opted for e-commerce/e-business strategies, and direct and indirect exports. A smaller portion of the interviewees chose Greenfield investment as a mode of entry. Many of these MNEs could be classified as born global/INV.
Finally, this study presents a conceptual framework for use in studying the entry mode choice of enterprises from Lusophone Africa frontier markets and presents research propositions for better understanding the determinants of entry mode strategies of enterprise from Angola and Mozambique.

Keywords: Internationalization, Entry Mode, Emerging Markets, Frontier Markets, Lusophone African MNEs, Angola, Mozambique

Internationalization of emerging market firms (EMFs) is challenging pre-eminent theories. This article argues that no single existing theory adequately explains EMFs’ pattern for overseas investment. Using case studies and a multi-level approach, our research suggests that EMFs can be categorized into four different clusters based on different rationales, objectives, and motivations. Our findings suggest that existing theories can be useful for explaining the process of internationalization, but this holds only for specific clusters. This is of particular importance for EMFs since the presence and influence of the state on EMFs internationalization is both critical and diverse from developed economies.

The historic expansion of capitalism knew an enlargement in time and space since the end of the last century. Combining a set of globalization advantages, it generated a deeper integration and interdependence in world economy which lead to the merger of historically distinct and separated markets into an enormous global market. And, at the same time, making it more favorable for firms to cross borders and facilitating their global production and sales of products and services.

Since then, many authors have been working on different international management strategies theorization. Despite the existence of many scientific articles, the vast majority of these only cover the companies’ experiences from developed markets. Otherwise, since the beginning of this new millennium, the emerging markets form the engine of world economic growth and a lot of multinationals from these countries begun to go global and assume strategic presences outside their natural markets, experiencing the most different internationalization processes.

This investigation intends to analyze this tendency, looking specifically to the companies’ path from Latin American, and to understand which strategy these companies have been following to become global. Based on existing international strategy models and perspectives, we set out the analysis of seven case studies about Latin American food industry companies which will allow us to recognize which is the international strategy followed by each firm, how they organize their operations abroad in terms of multidivisional structures, what is the role of people in their internationalization processes, and how their financial partners look to this new reality.

Keywords: International Strategy, Internationalization Processes, Latin American Firms, Food Industry.

JEL Classification System: F23, M16

The term “Internationalization at Home” and its definition were first introduced in 2001 (Crowther et al 2001). Since then, strongly related and overlapping concepts and definitions have emerged, notably Internationalization of the Curriculum and Campus Internationalization, which have led to confusion over terminology and risk distracting attention from the main job of implementing internationalized curricula. This chapter focuses on the concept and definition of Internationalization at Home. It first critically explores three accepted definitions: 1. Internationalization; 2. Comprehensive Internationalization; and 3. Internationalization of the Curriculum. This is followed by a discussion of three notions which are more contested: the distinction between internationalization at home and abroad; the OECD definition of an internationalized curriculum; and Campus Internationalization. Their similarities to and differences from Internationalization at Home (IaH) are discussed. Next, recent developments in conceptualizing Internationalization at Home and in its implementation are presented. It will be argued that, while Internationalization of the Curriculum is the overarching term, the concept of IaH within that is still valuable in certain contexts and for certain purposes. On the basis of these arguments, it is maintained that the current definition of IaH does not provide sufficient support for those with an interest in internationalizing domestic curricula. The authors therefore propose a new working definition and identify challenges that await those who want to implement Internationalization at Home.

Purpose – This paper aims to complement existing theories of internationalization by studying an
important aspect which has been neglected in previous studies: the process of international
entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. International market entry is conceptualized as an
entrepreneurial, innovative act; and opportunity recognition consists of both discovery as well as
deliberate and systematic search.

Design/methodology/approach – The methodology employed involves eight case studies of small
and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in knowledge-based industries in Australia. The unit
of analysis is the “opportunity-firm” nexus.

Findings – The paper finds that firms with little or no prior international knowledge tend to make
use of opportunity discovery rather than deliberate/systematic search. In contrast, firms with
extensive prior international experience and knowledge were found to deliberately search and discover
their first international opportunity. International opportunity discovery did not occur simply through
serendipitous encounters with new information from networks or referrals but involved interpreting
possible matches between pre-existing means (resources, skills, new technologies) and new ends
(international markets) in a problem solving process. It favours those with the requisite prior
knowledge and entrepreneurial orientation.

Practical implications – The paper offers guidelines on what business practitioners and export
promotion agencies can and cannot do to influence opportunity recognition process. Particular
attention was paid to strategies to avoid costly deliberate search among resource-stricken SMEs.
Originality/value – This study introduces Knightian uncertainty and Kirznerian discovery as the
conceptual cornerstones of internationalization that can help account for the lack of incrementalism
and optimizing logic in internationalization among smaller firms.

The globalization that fuelled the years from 1990 to 2020 is not over; it is not the same globalization. A common thought was established, but it was put in the attic by the speed of transmission of goods, products, contracts, ideas, images, sounds and policies; today we talk about regional globalization, areas of geo-economic competition, snail competition and the causes are identified in the various socio-political phenomena that are locally determined.

In an increasingly globalizing economy, many firms are driven by the need to expand business to international markets. The decision making process regarding the internationalization evolves around the choice of market, timing and mode of entry. This paper is a review of the theoretical underpinnings of the internationalization process of firms.
There are two main streams of theories regarding the internationalization process; the economic approach and the behavioral approach. These two approaches observe the internationalization process of firms from considerably different angels. Among the most widely known theories following the economic approach are Dunning’s Eclectic Theory, the International Product Life Cycle Model, and the Transaction Cost Approach. Among the most widely known theories following the behavioral approach are Ahroni’s Decision Making Model, the Uppsala Model, and the Innovation-Related Internationalization Models.
Even though these theories and models are the foundation that most research today is built on, many academics question their applicability due to the radical change that has taken place in international business. Many small and medium sized firms today seem to follow somewhat different processes in their internationalization than large and more established firms. Attempts have been made to respond to this, for example with the model regarding Born Globals and the Network Theory, but empirical research seems to be far ahead of the theoretical developments in the field.

La ricerca presentata in questo libro è stata realizzata in un arco di tempo esteso (1985-1997) per seguire i percorsi internazionali delle piccole imprese appartenenti a un distretto, quello pesarese del mobile, per il quale fin dalle origini si è evidenziata una forte presenza di economie distrettuali “di canale” nelle relazioni con i circuiti commerciali esterni, nazionali e internazionali. Si tratta di un modello di sviluppo parzialmente difforme da quello di altri sistemi distrettuali, che si è protratto nel tempo e ha maturato una diffusa coscienza dell’internazionalizzazione, sfruttando a proprio vantaggio la varietà di sollecitazioni, di interlocutori e di spazi mercato via via disponibili.
Dinamiche che, sul fronte delle imprese, hanno messo in luce una grande versatilità ma talvolta anche profili statici e scarsa permeabilità fra esperienze vissute nel mercato interno e nei mercati esteri. L’appartenenza al doppio sistema distretto-canale determina infatti un’articolazione di ruoli e un intreccio di relazioni che scaturisce dal complesso combinarsi di piccole dimensioni di impresa, distretto industriale e processi di internazionalizzazione e che richiede una visione di insieme e comportamenti coerenti.
Collocare la piccola impresa nel distretto e nel canale aiuta a riflettere sulla sua effettiva e potenziale capacità strategica, dando valore alle dinamiche relazionali nell’intera filiera di produzione e vendita e coinvolgendo quindi la dimensione distrettuale nel confronto competitivo.

This paper focuses on a comprehensive systematic review of international peer-reviewed journal articles in the field of family business internationalization for a period of 15 years. A total number of 103 articles were reviewed, published in 40 international journals, among which are Family Business Review, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of International Business Studies, and etc. Our review indicates some important features of the evolution of the family business internationalization literature. First, studies become more interdisciplinary and they are dispersed in a wide range of journals. Second, internationalization of family small and medium-sized enterprises was arguably underexplored in the past, and yet studies on this topic experience a rapid growth in the new millennium (the peak is observed mostly in the last few years). Third, theories that are frequently used in the reviewed articles include international entrepreneurship; stage theory of internationalization; resources and capabilities; stewardship theory; agency theory, and etc. Fourth, reviewed articles, based on contradictory findings contribute to an on-going lively debate. In general, non-family enterprises outperform family enterprises and factors as family involvement in ownership and management are found to be rather restrictive than enabling internationalization. Yet, other factors such as external involvement in ownership and management are positively related to internationalization of family small and medium-sized enterprises.

Purpose – This paper aims to complement existing theories of internationalization by studying an important aspect which has been neglected in previous studies: the process of international entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. International market entry is conceptualized as an entrepreneurial, innovative act; and opportunity recognition consists of both discovery as well as deliberate and systematic search.

Design/methodology/approach – The methodology employed involves eight case studies of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in knowledge-based industries in Australia. The unit of analysis is the " opportunity-firm " nexus.

Findings – The paper finds that firms with little or no prior international knowledge tend to make use of opportunity discovery rather than deliberate/systematic search. In contrast, firms with extensive prior international experience and knowledge were found to deliberately search and discover their first international opportunity. International opportunity discovery did not occur simply through serendipitous encounters with new information from networks or referrals but involved interpreting possible matches between pre-existing means (resources, skills, new technologies) and new ends (international markets) in a problem solving process. It favours those with the requisite prior knowledge and entrepreneurial orientation.

Practical implications – The paper offers guidelines on what business practitioners and export promotion agencies can and cannot do to influence opportunity recognition process. Particular attention was paid to strategies to avoid costly deliberate search among resource-stricken SMEs.

Originality/value – This study introduces Knightian uncertainty and Kirznerian discovery as the conceptual cornerstones of internationalization that can help account for the lack of incrementalism and optimizing logic in internationalization among smaller firms.

A wealth of research has addressed the internationalization of firms using different theories and conceptual approaches. This paper examines the extant research on internationalization specifically delving into seven streams of research: Market Power, Evolutionary Model, Internalization & Transaction Cost, Eclectic Paradigm, Resource-Based View, Institutional and International New Ventures & Born Global. Methodologically we conduct a bibliometric review in six leading journals recognized for publishing International Business (IB) research, during a forty one year period, from 1970 to 2010. Using citations and co-citations analyses on a sample of 1,459 articles, we sought to better understand the internationalization approaches and how they are interconnected, by examining its growth over time, the most used approaches, the works that have had the greatest impact, and the intellectual interconnections among authors. We conclude that there is no dominant approach in International Business research, albeit the Evolutionary Model has been the most cited-in almost 26% of the extant research.

Apoiando-nos nos vários contributos teóricos existentes, procuramos identificar e validar o papel dos recursos das empresas de calçado, a sua natureza e heterogeneidade, tentando identificar quais os recursos mais importantes para o processo de exportação e quais as atividades e processos com maior peso na constituição de capacidades que potenciem a conquista de vantagens competitivas e valor para as organizações. Identificamos ainda os principais instrumentos e políticas de apoio aos processos de internacionalização, bem como o seu alinhamento com as capacidades exportadoras derivadas e percecionadas pelos dirigentes.
Ao conseguirmos identificar recursos e capacidades centrais para o sucesso ou performance exportadora, estaremos a contribuir com nova informação e conhecimento para que decisores e policy makers desenvolvam novas políticas, instrumentos e apoios, de forma a incrementar o desempenho da indústria exportadora nacional.
O presente estudo procura integrar a gestão de recursos e as capacidades internas das organizações com a performance exportadora das empresas da indústria de calçado português.

The traditional Realism, Liberalism, and Constructivism international relations theories cannot offer adequate and sufficient approaches to its existing conflicts in the world politics. Realism with the idea of security and military power, and liberalism with a focus on the role of the economy in international system and constructivism in the formation of the international system,

Rabindranath Tagore was the first Indian and Asian winner of Nobel Prize for Literature. His composition was chosen for the national anthem of independent India. It conveys a message of internationalism, wherein the whole world is presented as the home of mankind. It is very relevant for today's world plagued with the cruelty towards the refugees.

Global health is becoming an important area of inquiry and learning in North American research universities, stemming from on-going and new commitments to the field by multiple governmental and non-governmental agents. External demands for research and education in global health require enhanced inter-disciplinary, inter-sectoral and international collaborations, all perceived as growing trends but often not easily accommodated in universities. This paper investigates how four leading universities in Canada and the US have entered the field of global health, exploring the relationships among national contexts, academic structures, and institutional strategies. Content analysis of institutional records is triangulated with data from sixty interviews with academic leaders and researchers at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, McGill and Toronto. Resource asymmetries emerge as an important differentiating factor shaping the emergence of global health in the American and Canadian institutions. Domestic sources of support and previous academic structures provided important cumulative advantages to the US campuses in claiming national and international leadership in the field.

Chinese and Russian universities are increasingly drawn into center-periphery repositioning, as they compete for symbolic, financial, and intellectual resources locally and globally. However, their strategies on national and institutional linkages differ with regards to the individual scientist’s powers in knowledge production. As global hierarchies of knowledge productivity benchmark prestigious publications, and national industries seek access to innovative products in global research and development labs, globally connected talents become essential for elevating local research performance. This article examines the undercurrents of center-periphery repositioning in Russia and China by comparing their research and development funding and performance data, as well as contrasting their global standing with Brazil, India, South Africa, and G7 members. A method of comparative multilayered patterning of mixed data sets is used to reflect on center-periphery dilemmas facing the Chinese and Russian scientists.

A escola de Uppsala propõe um modelo que considera o aumento gradual do nível de internacionalização da firma, através da obtenção de conhecimento sobre novos mercados e comprometimento de recursos. Mudanças no ambiente de negócios e releituras teóricas levaram ao reconhecimento da influência das redes de negócio sobre os processos de aprendizagem e obtenção de conhecimento. Este estudo tem por objetivo analisar o modelo conceitual de Uppsala e seus desdobramentos, a partir da Visão Baseada em Recursos (RBV). Desta forma, pretende-se discutir o papel dos recursos e capacidades para a geração de conhecimento e aprendizagem das empresas durante processos de internacionalização.

The authors studied how knowledge derived from firms’ relationships—the so-called second-hand knowledge—is likely to influence their internationalization process. In this article, they examine how a European producer of textiles is able to sell worldwide, including to China, a highly competitive player in this industry. This article discusses models of firms’ networks and the extent to which such networks generate important knowledge that can explain internationalization behavior—how it is able to influence the selection of foreign markets and the entry mode used. The authors use the revised version of the Uppsala model of internationalization, which emphasizes the roles of trust-building, knowledge, and creation of opportunities within relationships.

This paper investigates the relationship between the contextual factors related to the firm’s decision-maker and the process of international strategic decision-making. The analysis has been conducted focusing on small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). Data for the research came from 111 usable responses to a survey on a sample of SME decision-makers in international field. The results of regression analysis indicate that the context variables, both internal and external, exerted more influence on international strategic decision making process than the decision-maker personality characteristics.

This study assesses the degree of internationalization of Chinese firms along the Belt and Road initiative countries. Most of the extant studies of the Belt and Road initiative have been qualitative, and where there have been quantitative studies, they have usually been at the aggregate level, and only a handful have used firm-level data to study initiative. Using a composite measure of the degree of internationalization, DOI BRI , that composed of variables capturing the performance, structural and attitudinal dimensions of internationalization, comparative analysis of State-owned enterprises and privately owned enterprises turned up counter-intuitive results. Firstly, given that state ownership could be positively associated with the degree of internationalization of firms and because of the significance of the Belt and Road initiative, we expected the State-owned enterprises to dominate the DOI BRI rank-ings. We assessed the firms, and contrary to expectations, privately owned firms had a higher average degree of internationalization. Furthermore, we expected both state-owned enterprises and privately-owned enterprises to have similar levels of psychic dispersion. However, state-owned enterprises were more psychically dispersed. Suggesting that along the belt and road countries, the advantages of state ownership of Chinese multinationals may be attenuated.

Despite burgeoning research in international entrepreneurship (IE), very little is known about the processes of how entrepreneurs recognize and pursue opportunities in international markets. To provide an answer to this “opportunity process gap,” we drew on the idea sets framework from the entrepreneurship literature to longitudinally examine a serial entrepreneur who achieved international market success with little industry-specific knowledge, networks, and resources. The research demonstrates the efficacy of the new approach as a lens and methodological framework to advance process-driven explanations and research in IE. These preliminary results reveal a new concept labeled here as opportunity portfolio processing, which involves discovery,
creation, prototyping, pruning, and broadening of opportunity sets, that underpins the fundamental processes but not previously documented mechanisms in IE. Our study allowed us to induce a set of IE opportunity portfolio measures—volume, flow rate, novelty, magnitude, and geographical coverage—that offers an alternative framework
for measuring and predicting IE performance. In developing the arguments, we present six findings including the role of prior history that, taken together, move us closer to an opportunity portfolio perspective in IE.

Several internationalization theories have been developed over the past few decades that have made great contributions in explaining enterprise internationalization and their mode of entry strategy. It has been suggested that the determinants of entry mode choice of enterprises from emerging and frontier markets differ from those of comparable enterprises from advanced economies. Literature review appears to indicate that there is a need to expand the framework for entry mode strategies to accommodate the expansion issues enterprises from emerging and frontier countries face in the global marketplace. Nevertheless, not much information and an acceptable conclusion have been made on how MNEs from frontier markets internationalize and what factors influence their choice of entry into those markets.
This study investigated the internationalization strategies of Lusophone Africa MNEs from Angola and Mozambique, more specifically their entry mode. Information was gathered through a survey of 29 MNE’s upper management respondents and subsequent face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 24 of them in their countries.
The results of this study suggest that most MNEs opted for equity-based investment strategies, mainly joint venture and M&E as their preferred mode of entry when internationalizing. A significant group of them opted for e-commerce/e-business strategies, and direct and indirect exports. A smaller portion of the interviewees chose Greenfield investment as a mode of entry. Many of these MNEs could be classified as born global/INV.
Finally, this study presents a conceptual framework for use in studying the entry mode choice of enterprises from Lusophone Africa frontier markets and presents research propositions for better understanding the determinants of entry mode strategies of enterprise from Angola and Mozambique.

El presente trabajo de investigación tiene como objetivo presentar algunos factores clave que expliquen la realización de inversiones greenfield investment por parte de las empresas multinacionales españolas. Para llevar a cabo tal investigación han sido encuestadas 166 empresas multinacionales españolas, que entre otro tipo de inversión, han realizado greenfield investment. Para ello se justifica en base a los fundamentos de la teoría de los recursos y capacidades, ya que lo que se quiere llegar a saber son los factores internos de la empresa que más inciden sobre la realización de una greenfield investment.
Como introducción a la parte empírica, el artículo pone de manifiesta la importancia la teoría de los recursos y capacidades, expone el auge de las inversiones directas extranjeras, las diferentes formas que puede revestir, la evolución de la IDE española desde 1990 hasta la actualidad y algunos ejemplos de greenfield investment que empresas españolas han llevado a cabo.

Abstract Small and medium enterprise (SME) competitive advantage has been recognized as an important topic for researchers dealing with SME internationalization. Previous studies have long discussed the role of firm competitive advantage as a determinant of international performance, but there are few studies analyzing the determinants of firm competitive advantage and its potential mediating role in the relationship between organizational capabilities and SMEs' international performance. In this paper, we hypothesize four essential export capabilities (market intelligence, product innovation, pricing, and marketing communication) as determinants of competitive advantage for exporting SMEs. Based on a sample of 119 active exporting Malaysian SMEs and using partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling, the results revealed that three of the mentioned capabilities lead to competitive advantage. In addition, results indicated that competitive advantage only acts as a mediator between pricing capability and SMEs' international performance. The main conclusions of this investigation can be valuable to SMEs and startups that intend to explore or exploit opportunities in foreign markets.

This article aims to better understand patterns of rapid internationalization by using the emerging international entre-preneurship paradigm. This involves (1) taking an opportunity-based view (OBV) rather than just the firm as a focal point of analysis, (2) focusing on dynamic entrepreneurial processes, and (3) stressing the importance of history. The authors gathered empirical evidence from 15 case studies of small and medium-sized enterprises in Australia. They find support for the central proposition that behind the gradual or rapid internationalization process lies a path-dependent process of opportunity development and cross-border venturing activities that is shaped by the domestic and international networks in which the key actors and organizations have operated in the past and in which they are currently operating. The evidence leads the authors to question the notion that rapid internationalization is indeed rapid. Importantly , it reveals that rapid internationalization seems to be a truly rapid process only when not taking an OBV. In doing so, the authors demonstrate that the OBV is a fruitful avenue of enquiry to advance knowledge in this area and underscore the importance of the entrepreneurial process and firm history.

This paper explores the policy agendas and forces that drive academic partnerships in one of the rapidly changing and ambitious jurisdictions of East Asia – Hong Kong, SAR, China. The jurisdiction’s affinitive relations with mainland China and other neighboring Chinese societies, including  Macau, Singapore and Taiwan, shape new interdependencies that have the potential to spearhead change within higher education systems in the region. By using a multi-level analysis approach, the paper examines how global, regional and national interdependencies affect the policy agendas of academic partnerships.  The study is embedded into the larger discourse of higher education studies about relational dynamics between universities and societies at the time of globalization.