The authors identify the following key constraints that smaller born-global firms face: lack of economies of scale, lack of resources (financial and knowledge), and aversion to risk taking. The authors explore how such firms overcome these constraints by using technology to achieve competitive advantage and by networking competencies to develop a range of alliances and collaborative partnerships. Thus, the article focuses on a particular aspect of business-to-business marketing, namely, how small firms achieve rapid growth internationally through alliances with suppliers, distributors, and joint-venture partners and how these relationships change over time to meet the changing needs of the partners.

Substantial scholarly work has shed much light on the development of a contemporary global environment—namely, the phenomenon of born-global firms. These young entrepreneurial firms, which take on internationalization early in their evolution, are now found in large numbers in most economies, especially in smaller, saturated, developed markets. In this article, the authors advance some theoretical explanations regarding the behavior of these firms. In the current Australian case-based study, rather than engaging in a firm-level analysis, the authors focus on the attitudinal orientations of senior management in this new breed of internationally active firms. In contrast to an incremental approach, the authors offer a theoretical explanation that integrates the network perspective and resource-based view with international entrepreneurship. Their exploration of the managerial mind-set of these smaller born-global firms leads to the identification of four states of commitment to accelerated internationalization by top management. Delineating these states should assist managers in achieving their accelerated internationalization objectives. Any of the four attitudinal mind-sets facilitates internationalization, but the strategist state adopts a more benevolent, collaborative behavioral stance designed to preserve key relationships. The strategist also avoids the short-term orientation, competitiveness, and self-interest of the responder, the opportunist, and the experimentalist.

Existing models of the internationalization process have not captured the important phenomenon of accelerated international growth of born-global firms, which led Johanson and Vahlne (2003) to revise their model. However, the revised network model falls short of explaining rapid internationalization of firms. While they indicate a "specific relationship development process" used by born-global managers, Johanson and Vahlne (2003) still suggest the existence of an incremental learning and "responsive" model, which is based on pre-existing relationships. We extend current theory in arguing that born-global managers can use both pre-existing and newly-formed relationships, to quickly and proactively develop new knowledge for rapid commercialisation of their products. Proactive, advanced relationshipbuilding capability is based around locating partners with technological knowledge with a view to ensuring ease of sharing knowledge. We explore the development of trust and interfirm partnerships in established and newly-formed networks and how these lead to tacit knowledge, absorptive capacity and new knowledge generation. While Johanson and Vahlne's (2003) emphasise "market specific experience and operation experience" we emphasise "technological experience". The reason that knowledge sharing is able to proceed quickly is that the shared "technological knowledge" allows rapid transfer and development of new knowledge and the drive to commercialise a product before a competitor, promotes the "mutual need" (co-dependency) to act quickly, characteristic of technology-based industries, which face rapid change. As an outcome of the born-global manager's ability to locate new partners through existing networks, new international links may be quickly developed, with internationalization being an outcome, but not necessarily a driver of behaviour in smaller born-global supply chains.

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify key barriers to internationalisation in emerging markets (EMs) for professional service firms (PSFs) from developed markets and to explain how PSFs use social networks to participate within EMs of Asia and overcome these barriers. The paper aims to provide a framework of this process.Design/methodology/approachA case‐based research design is used to explore key professional service industries (legal, media consulting and financial), providing three case studies, in a developed market (Australia) that are expanding rapidly into EMs (Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam) of Asia.FindingsThe elements of orientating, positioning and timing were identified as critical in the context of foreign entry, with the network perspective providing a useful theoretical explanation of this process and underpinning the conceptual framework. Key barriers to internationalisation in EMs for PSFs from developed markets are identified: face‐to‐face communication, language, cultural, work practices and government regulations. How PSFs use social networks to participate within EMs of Asia to overcome these barriers reveal that social network elements are critical to FME specifically into EMs: orientation, positioning and time.Research limitations/implicationsWhile the conceptual framework of key barriers and how PSF overcame them is theoretically supported by the findings, the framework could be tested more appropriately through an extended number of cases prior to a survey to provide generalizability.Practical implicationsSocial networks were used by managers of PSFs to secure market knowledge and to act as a basis for strategic decision making, with foreign network actors a key influence in the foreign market entry process.Originality/valueThe paper provides a framework for identifying key barriers to internationalisation in EMs for PSFs.