The international penetration of ibusiness firms: Network effects, liabilities of outsidership and country clout

Liang Chen (), Noman Shaheer (), Jingtao Yi () and Sali Li ()
Additional contact information
Liang Chen: University of Melbourne
Noman Shaheer: University of South Carolina
Jingtao Yi: Renmin University of China
Sali Li: University of South Carolina

Journal of International Business Studies, 2019, vol. 50, issue 2, No 2, 172-192

Abstract: Abstract The burgeoning of ibusiness firms in the modern digital economy challenges the received internationalization theory. Given that ibusinesses such as social networking sites create value by providing a digital platform for users to interact with one another, we employ a user-network perspective and externalization logic, suggesting that ibusinesses’ internationalization process depends critically on users’ collective interactions, instead of being solely driven by firms’ market commitments, as noted by the Uppsala model. However, ibusinesses may suffer from liabilities of outsidership due to the boundedness of international network effects. Drawing on social network theory, we demonstrate that such liabilities can be mitigated by first diffusing the ibusiness platform in countries with higher clout. Our analysis using a unique dataset of mobile ibusiness platforms finds empirical support for the hypotheses. We discuss theoretical implications for the network approach of the Uppsala model in the digital era.

Keywords: digital; network effect; platform; outsidership; internationalization; foreign market entry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (68)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41267-018-0176-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:pal:jintbs:v:50:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1057_s41267-018-0176-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nt/journal/41267/PS2

DOI: 10.1057/s41267-018-0176-2

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Business Studies is currently edited by John Cantwell

More articles in Journal of International Business Studies from Palgrave Macmillan, Academy of International Business
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().