Planned Internationalization Level and Founder Attitudes Towards Venture Strategy

Abstract

Although the behavioral differences of firms that internationalize rapidly from birth (born globals) are well documented, the effects of early internationalization on new venture strategy remains largely unexplored. Using a large sample of nascent entrepreneurs, we explore the relationship between internationalization level and founder emphasis on four key dimensions of business strategy (i.e., price, product scope (i.e., niche/focus), differentiation, and innovation). Our finding of support for a non-linear (inverted-U) relationship between internationalization level and strategy suggests that strategy differences between born globals and domestic firms decrease at higher levels of intended internationalization.