The enhancers of the internationalization strategy and its relation with business performance – the Portuguese case

Abstract

Internationalization theories have been growing interest among researchers. However, as they mainly focused on the internationalization process of big and mature firms, it was thought that they need some other approaches that consider the challenges of small and younger firms. A growing flow of research on international new ventures(INV) has sought to understand the causes, processes and outcomes of the decision of smaller and younger firms to enter in foreign markets. The INV model states that some young SME’s rapidly internationalize exporting to distant markets practically since birth. Thus, instead of following the internationalization process theory, that states that firms enter new markets gradually, slowly compromising their resources in the development of export activities, these INV enter international markets almost immediately, without waiting until they have acquired experience in the domestic market with success. The perspective on international new ventures thus emphasizes the role of individual knowledge to argue that international ventures do not need organizational experiences, routines or capabilities to succeed in external markets. On the contrary, the international experiences of founders and other key managers can replace such shortcomings. In other words, the entrepreneur's role can define the firm's ability to acquire and operationalize its resources, thus being able to influence business performance, especially of international businesses. The growing popularity of this new perspective on international new ventures has created a body of literature on this issue and of its influence on international business performance. Aiming to analyze the existence of an association between international business performance and the factors that act, on the entrepreneur perspective, as enhancers of the internationalization strategy, an online questionnaire survey was conducted with several variables, based on the literature review. The questionnaire was sent to all firms registered in the AICEP database of Portuguese internationalized firms, by sending a link via e-mail and using the Google Forms tool between May 2019 and January 2020. Data collected from the 238 valid responses (Portuguese international firms) were treated by IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0 software through a quantitative approach based on a descriptive, exploratory and inferential analysis. In accordance with International New Ventures Theory, the Strategic Choice view and Network theory, we expect to find evidence of the correlation between the factors that act, on the entrepreneur perspective, as enhancers of the internationalization strategy and the percentage of business that resulted from internationalization (termed “Turnover”). We also intend to ascertain if there is any evidence of the importance of the enhancing factors related to skills, knowledge and networks in international business performance.