Internationalization of Small Indian Family-Firms: An Emergent Theory

Tulsi Jayakumar ()
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Tulsi Jayakumar: S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research

Chapter 15 in The Palgrave Handbook of Family Firm Internationalization, 2021, pp 461-517 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Fast-growing emerging economies like India present interesting contexts to study internationalization of small family-firms faced with lucrative domestic opportunities of high growth rates, amidst global challenges posed by protectionism and adverse geopolitical factors. Based on a case study of eight small Indian family-firms, we present an integrated model of small family-firm internationalization in fast-growing emerging economies, incorporating environmental state and change variables and family factors (family capabilities and liabilities and economic and non-economic goals), which together shape the family-firm’s ability and willingness to internationalize. The ‘ability-willingness’ framework is used to explain various internationalization pathways, as also internationalization decisions following a processual approach. We find evidence of two additional internationalization pathways to those found in extant theory. ‘Cohesive’ pathways involve a planned and structured concurrent expansion of these small family-firms in domestic and international markets in a manner that leads to limited internationalization. The strong home-country pull, compared to host-country pull, together with specific family-firm characteristics and goals, shapes such pathways. Other small family-firms, even erstwhile ‘born global’, when faced with strong host-country push and specific family factors, may reverse their internationalization journey leading to de-internationalization pathways. Finally, ethnic nationalism as a non-economic family factor may affect sustainability of internationalization.

Keywords: Cohesive internationalization pathways; De-internationalization pathways; Ethnic nationalism; Indian small family-firm internationalization; Integrative model of fast-growing emerging economy small family-firm internationalization; Internationalization process (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-66737-5_15

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-66737-5_15

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