Born Globals: Entrepreneurial Strategies for Rapid Internationalization

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Type and Duration

PhD-Thesis, September 2013 until June 2017 (finished)

Coordinator

Competence Center for Entrepreneurship and Family Business

Main Research

Growth and Complexity

Field of Research

Enterprise

Description

In times of ubiquitous globalization, more and more small entrepreneurial companies start their international activities very soon after their establishment. The term Born Global has established as the most common concept for this phenomenon and has caused the rapid growth of international entrepreneurship as a research field. Born Globals are defined as companies which start internationalization in a very early stage after their founding and generate a substantial proportion of their revenues in foreign markets. Traditional internalization approaches are not sufficient to explain the atypical pathway of these rapidly internationalizing ventures. Because of their often limited resources, the resource-based view becomes less important for Born Globals, and the focus turns instead on the mindset and the behaviour of the acting individual. Entrepreneurs of Born Globals have developed obviously special techniques and strategies to leverage innovativeness, knowledge, and capabilities to achieve considerable foreign market success early in their evolution. The research gap opens up by focusing on the peculiarity of the internationalizationprocess of Born Globals and their entrepreneurial strategies, which contribute to their successful internationalization.

Reference to Liechtenstein

Das Fürstentum Liechtenstein gilt als "Blaupause" einer Volkswirtschaft mit einer besonders hohen Ausprägung in Entrepreneurship. Dabei sind es vor allem junge Unternehmen, die sehr rasch nach ihrer Gründung bereits global tätig sind. Die Erforschung dieses Phänomens verspricht neue Erkenntnisse, die dabei helfen können den Standort Liechtenstein auch zukünftig international erfolgreich zu positionieren und entscheidende Wettbewerbsvorteile nachhaltig zu stärken.

Keywords

Entrepreneurship, Born Global, Internationalization