The Entrepreneurial Orientation of Rapidly Internationalizing Service: Firms and its Link to International Operations

Abstract

This paper studies the international entrepreneurial orientation of rapidly internationalizing services firms (RISFs) and its relationship to three of their foreign market activities. Using multiple case studies we explore the research question: How does the international entrepreneurial orientation of rapidly internationalizing service firms affect their foreign market entry, market penetration, and growth? We build on entrepreneurship and international services literature to develop our research question that leads to the advancement of seven propositions as a foundation for further research. Three entrepreneurial orientation elements were investigated, of which proactiveness and innovativeness seemed to have the strongest links to RISF foreign activities. The analysis also uncovered interesting insights about RISF innovativeness some of which contradict extant services literature. Our paper makes three contributions: it provides empirical insights about RISFs, addressing a historical shortage of international services firm studies; it answers calls for further research in this area; it introduces an empirical analysis on service firm innovativeness at an international level, lending weight to similar future studies. We separately hope our research contributes to International Entrepreneurship research via our results linking RISF foreign activities and international entrepreneurial orientation.