The purpose of this study is to explore what decision-making logic (effectual or causal) is dominant in the new venture internationalisation process and what influences its changes over time. To this end, we present a case study of a Polish international new venture (INV) operating in the audiobook industry. The study's findings reveal that decision-making logic at the early stage of company growth and internationalisation cannot be assigned to one type of logic, but rather may shift from effectuation to causation and vice versa. Moreover, we argue that INVs may apply two logics simultaneously, depending on the characteristics of the problem space.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore how individual-level cognitive and organizational-level behavioral factors influence the level of firms’ export performance as firms adapt to the challenges of foreign expansion.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the literature on dynamic capabilities (DCs) and international business, the study introduces a multi-level model of DC to internationalize and test it empirically on a sample of 93 Polish exporting firms using structural equation modeling.
Findings
The results show a strong and positive impact of the “strategy as stretch” managerial mind-set on two behavioral elements, namely, business modeling and partnering capability. Global mind-set has a strong and positive impact on business modeling and learning about foreign markets and a negative but insignificant effect on partnering capability. Only two of the three behavioral elements of the conceptualized DC have significant and positive impacts on export performance. In contrast to the expectations, the direct path coefficient from learning about foreign markets to export performance was found to be positive but insignificant.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by offering a coherent, multi-level framework of DCs. The study goes beyond previous conceptualizations of DCs and considers various individual-level cognitive and organizational-level behavioral elements of DC for the internationalization of exporting firms. In particular, this study shows the interplay between them and their combined impact on export performance.
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