A latent class analysis of small firms’ internationalization patterns

Matthias Baum, Christian Schwens and Ruediger Kabst

Journal of World Business, 2015, vol. 50, issue 4, 754-768

Abstract: Research on International Entrepreneurship recently argues for a fine-grained perspective on different internationalization patterns. By combining prior literature on internationalization patterns with the regionalization hypothesis, we theoretically derive four distinct internationalization patterns of small firms (i.e. born-globals, born-again globals, traditional internationalizers and born-regionals). We then draw on the resource-based view to examine capabilities’ and resources’ impact on these patterns. Testing our theoretical predictions by means of latent class analysis, we find that gradually internationalizing small firms (traditional internationalizers) account for roughly 50% of small firms, while only 15% of the small firms pursue a “true” born-global pattern. International growth orientation and prior international experience promote a born-global and born-regional pattern; learning orientation fosters traditional internationalization; intense network contacts positively affect born-again global patterns and product differentiation leads to a “regionalized” internationalization. We discuss these findings and highlight implications for future studies based on our theoretical and methodological contributions.

Keywords: Internationalization patterns; Latent class analysis; Resource-based-view; Small firms; High technology sectors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (39)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090951615000188
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:worbus:v:50:y:2015:i:4:p:754-768

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/620401/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 620401/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.jwb.2015.03.001

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of World Business is currently edited by David Collings and Jonathan Doh

More articles in Journal of World Business from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().