* International Business
Review*
*Special Issue CALL FOR PAPERS*
* International Entrepreneurship and the Contemporary Global Firm*
* Guest Editors: *
*Gary Knight* (Atkinson Graduate School of Management, Willamette
University, USA)
*Zaheer Khan* (School of Business, University of Aberdeen, UK)
*Niina Nummela* (Turku School of Economics, University of Turku, Finland)
*Submission Deadline*: *1 July 2023*
We invite you to submit a paper to the Special Issue of *International
Business Review *(IBR) on International Entrepreneurship (IE), which
coincides with the 30-year and 20-year anniversaries, respectively, of
publication of seminal works by Oviatt and McDougall (1994) and Knight and
Cavusgil (2004) in this area. IE emphasizes proactive, innovative, and
risk-seeking behaviors aimed at creatively discovering and exploiting
opportunities internationally in pursuit of performance advantages
(McDougall & Oviatt, 2000). For example, IE can refer to ‘born globals’ and
‘international new ventures’ (INVs) (e.g., Autio, 2005; Knight & Cavusgil,
2004; Oviatt and McDougall, 1994), a category of firms characterized by
early or rapid internationalization.
Expanding abroad early and rapidly is a significant and
fascinating exception in company internationalization because,
historically, most firms initiated international business (IB)
substantially after their founding, often decades later (Coviello et al,
2017; Jones & Coviello, 2005). Firms that internationalize early and/or
rapidly are usually characterized by a paucity of tangible and financial
resources (Knight & Cavusgil, 2004), resulting in the liabilities of small
size, youth (e.g., inexperience), and foreignness, and the need to develop
and apply distinctive performance-enhancing resources, capabilities, and
strategies when they expand abroad (e.g., Jantunen et al, 2008). Research
indicates that many such firms exhibit flexibility, international
entrepreneurial orientation, learning orientation, and superior
international marketing capabilities (e.g., Cavusgil & Knight, 2015;
Chandra, Styles, & Wilkinson, 2012; Khan & Lew, 2018).
IE encompasses young entrepreneurial ventures as well as
managers in large, established firms who behave like entrepreneurs to
launch international ventures (a phenomenon known as ‘corporate
entrepreneurship’ or ‘intrapreneurship’) (McDougall & Oviatt, 2000). Firms
undertake corporate entrepreneurship to develop new businesses, products or
processes inside existing organizations to create value and generate new
revenue. Corporate entrepreneurship can energize older organizations by
fostering culture, resources, and processes that motivate, support, and
engage the firm in entrepreneurial thinking and action. The established
firm may develop an idea internally, and then build a startup inside the
firms. Or the firm may identify an early-stage startup to acquire or
collaborate with, and potentially assimilate into the larger organization.
Scholars also have examined IE as the cross-national
exploration, discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of *opportunities* to
create future goods and services (Mainela et al, 2014; Oviatt & McDougall,
2005). Exploration is searching abroad to discover new opportunities, and
implies discovery, risk-taking, innovation, and experimentation.
Exploitation implies taking advantage of existing opportunities, and
developing and executing needed strategies and actions. Capabilities
related to both exploration and exploitation support achieving superior
international performance.
Firms that undertake IE are affected by national phenomena,
such as economic, institutional, and sociocultural factors. Individual
entrepreneurs and managers may be influenced by cognitive, emotional, and
physical factors (Miller & Breton-Miller, 2017), alongside the risk,
uncertainly, and complexity that characterize international expansion.
A growing number of firms adopt transnational entrepreneurship,
leveraging the global mobility of people. Transnational entrepreneurs may
rely on social and economic resources based in more than one country
(Lundberg & Rehnfors, 2018). The category includes international
entrepreneurs, migrant entrepreneurs, ethnic entrepreneurs, and returnee
entrepreneurs (Drori, Honig, & Wright, 2009; Czinkota, Khan, & Knight,
2021). Migrants launch international ventures, targeting their home
countries and other international markets. Migrant entrepreneurs bring to
host nations social networks, experience, bridges to foreign investors, and
other assets and resources. Interestingly, many of these entrepreneurs are
able to overcome the liabilities of underdeveloped home markets, immature
institutions, resource poverty, and other challenges (Dabić et al, 2020;
Elo et al, 2018). Research is needed on such ‘challenge-based
entrepreneurship’, including early and mature stages of growth (e.g.,
Miller & Breton-Miller, 2017, Rodgers et al., 2022). Other emerging topics
relevant to IE include corporate political activity, social responsibility
and sustainability (e.g., Rodgers et al., 2019; Shepherd & Patzelt, 2011),
as well as social entrepreneurship, which seeks solutions for poverty and
other social problems (cf. Zahra et al., 2014; Zucchella, 2021).
The Internet and emerging technologies (e.g., blockchain,
digital platforms, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence) are
essential elements of IE (Nambisan, Zahra, & Luo, 2019; Walton, 2022).
Technology is known to (i) broadly support IE, and (ii) actualize novel
international opportunities for firms that operate via digital platforms
and ecosystems (Chakravarty et al, 2021). Platforms generate value by
facilitating low-cost third-party transactions at scale (e.g., Airbnb,
Uber), attracting many buyers and sellers. Digital processes reduce spatial
and temporal boundaries and facilitate IE (cf. Monaghan et al., 2020),
including the rapid internationalization of firms from emerging and
developing economies. Digital platform firms and companies in the services
sector undertake early and rapid internationalization as they
internationalize via the Internet. In addition, recent research has
examined the role of digital platforms in crowdfunding — large-scale online
fundraising from many sources for projects or ventures (e.g., Ahsan &
Musteen, 2021).
The literature on IE remains fragmented, with substantial gaps
in content, theory, and methodology (e.g., Reuber et al, 2017). Event
studies, ethnography, mixed-methods research, experimental designs, and
other rarely applied methodologies can help move the field forward (e.g.,
Eden et al., 2022; Nummela, 2014; Zellmer-Bruhn et al., 2016). Research is
also needed that leverages theoretical perspectives that have been little
employed in IE — for example, the integration-responsiveness framework
(e.g., Roth & Morrison, 1990), the organizational life-cycle approach
(e.g., Dodge, Fullerton, & Robbins, 1994), the effectuation view (e.g.,
Sarasvathy, 2001; Sarasvathy et al, 2014), and the legitimacy view (e.g.,
Kostova & Zaheer, 1999). Other potential theoretical perspectives include
the knowledge-based view, capabilities view, resource dependency view,
business models view, strategic choice theory, strategic ambidexterity,
agency theory, network theory, social capital theory, institutional theory,
culture explanations, and numerous others.
Markets and institutions are evolving. Recent exogenous factors
— e.g., protectionism, populism, deglobalization, and sanctions — are
affecting the landscape of internationalization and firms’ survival and
growth. The liabilities of foreignness and local competition remain
powerful hurdles in company internationalization. The Covid-19 pandemic has
created additional pressures on internationally entrepreneurial firms
(Amankwah-Amoah et al., 2021). Research is needed on how firms leverage IE
to navigate external shocks and adapt their business models.
* Potential Topics for Submissions *This Special Issue welcomes both
theoretical and empirical papers. Appropriate topics for submissions
include, but are not limited to the following.
— Integration of the literature on entrepreneurship and IB. How can
‘entrepreneurship’ perspectives (e.g., behavioral models like bricolage and
improvisation) inform IE? How do IB perspectives (e.g., the eclectic
paradigm) inform IE?
— Novel theoretical perspectives to explain IE, including the post-entry
performance of entrepreneurial firms
— Factors that give rise to early and rapid internationalization
— Role of resources, capabilities, and/or dynamic capabilities in IE, and
in born globals and INVs
— Factors that allow born globals and INVs to supersede the advantages of
large MNEs
— Processes required for early and rapid internationalization, such as
scaling operations up and down
— Multi-level research incorporating diverse units of analysis —
individuals, teams, organizations (including non-governmental organizations
and nonprofits), networks, platforms, nascent industries, sectors
(including products and services), ecosystems, and nations
— Characteristics and antecedents of value creation and capture in IE
— Home- and host-country environments, including cultural and institutional
environments, as well as industrial clusters and ecosystems
— Characteristics of opportunity exploration and exploitation in IE. For
example, how do opportunities emerge or reveal themselves in IE? How can
scholars leverage the opportunities literature to inform IE?
— Emergent factors in the global external environment and their effect on
early/rapid internationalization, born globals, and INVs
— IE arising in or from emerging markets and by challenge-based
entrepreneurs
— Born global and INV navigation of regulatory uncertainty through
non-market strategies
— IE as corporate entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship in a global context
— Implications of emergent, novel trends in globalization and
‘deglobalization’ for IE
— The role of emergent or ‘fourth industrial revolution’ technologies,
including digital platforms and ecosystems. For example, how do digital
platforms affect the liabilities of size and foreignness in entrepreneurial
internationalization and post-entry survival?
— The contrast between traditional views on born globals and INVs that
leverage firm-specific advantages, versus digital firms that emphasize
external resources and ‘ecosystem-specific advantages’ (e.g., Li et al,
2019).
— Transnational entrepreneurship and the global mobility of people,
including international entrepreneurs, migrant entrepreneurs, ethnic
entrepreneurs, and returnee entrepreneurs.
— The role of corporate political activity, social responsibility and
sustainability in IE and international performance.
— The role of public policy in supporting early internationalization and
superior international performance in IE.
— The future of born globals and INVs. How do such firms evolve over time?
The deadline for submission is *July 1, 2023*. The submission of the
manuscripts will be through the IBR online submission system (
https://www.editorialmanager.com/ibr) from *1 June until 1 July 2023 only*.
They should follow the IBR guidelines available at:
https://www.elsevier.com/journals/international-business-review/0969-5931/guide-for-authors.
<https://www.elsevier.com/journals/international-business-review/0969-5931/guide-for-authors>
Please ensure you submit your paper for *this* Special Issue by ticking the
appropriate box at the above site. Papers will be double-blind reviewed,
following the IBR review procedure.
For additional information, contact one of the Special Issue guest editors:
*Gary Knight*, [log in to unmask]
*Zaheer Khan*, [log in to unmask]
*Niina Nummela*, [log in to unmask]
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Ahsan, M. & Musteen, M. (2021). International opportunity development on
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