Arild Aspelund

A review of the foundation, international marketing strategies, and performance of international new ventures

Purpose – This review aims to focus on the phenomenon of infant firms that operate internationally right from or close to inception, so‐called international new ventures (INVs) or born global firms. It also aims to provide a comprehensive review of the literature on INVs from the time when such firms emerged in the literature in the early 1990s up until today.Design/methodology/approach – The study is a systematic review of top journals within entrepreneurship, marketing and management over the years 1992‐2004. The focus is primarily on studies with empirical evidence and the review is narrative in nature. The study presents and discusses findings related to the founding of the firm, organizational features, environmental factors, and their influence on market strategy and firm performance.Findings – The study finds great heterogeneity on the factors examined within this relatively narrow defined group of firms. This leads the study to conclude that normative linear models of international expansion rende...

A generation perspective on small firm internationalization: From traditional exporters and flexible specialists to born globals

This paper deals with the effects of firm age on export behavior and performance for small exporters. Using market and technology trends from the last decades, we have classified three generations of small exporters: the traditional, the flexible specialists, and the Born Globals. Building upon a sample of Norwegian exporters these three generations of exporting firms are compared using competitive advantage, manager orientation, export motives, and export strategy. The results revealed several significant distinguishing features between the generations. Important differences were the strong technological competitiveness, niche focus and widespread use of advanced communication technology in the two groups of recently established exporters compared to the older, traditional exporters. The study also showed that the various generations of firms had different export performance antecedents. Key factors for the Born Globals were found to be technological advantage and niche focus combined with strong customer orientation. Among both the other groups — traditional exporters and flexible specialists — marketing advantage, product quality, and various manager orientation factors were important performance determinants. It seems that firm behavior and performance are partly contingent upon the environmental context in existence during the firms year of establishment, which results in systematic differences between the generations of exporting firms. As the firms year of establishment has often been a neglected variable in international marketing research, these results suggest we should pay more attention to firm age in future studies, as both export behavior and performance determinants vary between different generations of exporting firms. This study further concludes that we can now distinguish a new generation of exporters; the Born Global firms. One of the most important characteristics of these firms is their speed of internationalization; just a few years after establishment the Born Global firms achieve considerable sales in a number of export markets.

The importance of the internet in international business‐to‐business markets

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the actual use and market performance effects of information and communication technologies (ICT) with regard to international business‐to‐business marketing activities of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs).Design/methodology/approach – The analysis is based on survey data from 635 Danish and Norwegian SMEs with international marketing activities. The two primary research questions regarding actual use and performance effects are addressed by descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling, respectively.Findings – Findings suggest that, contrary to expectation, Norwegian and Danish international SMEs are not heavy users of ICT. Rather, ICT is predominantly used for market information search and to develop long‐term customer relationships. In both those areas the use of ICT is positively associated with the firms satisfaction with its development of new market knowledge. The use of ICT for sales purposes is limited and...

Multi-plant improvement programmes: a literature review and research agenda

Purpose: To advance the productivity of all plants in the network, multinational corporations develop and deploy multi-plant improvement programmes. In this paper, we systematically review and synthesise the emerging literature on multi-plant improvement programmes. Methodology: Through a systematic manual search, we examine fifteen top journals from operations management, general management and international business literature in the time span between 1998 and 2011.Findings: We found 30 papers that specifically deal with operational improvement programmes in a multi-plant international setting, of which only nine take a headquarter perspective. This low number contrasts sharply with the magnitude and importance of such programmes in industry. We discuss key dimensions that explain how multi-plant improvement programmes result in the adopting, adapting, acting or avoiding of programme practices in subsidiaries, and propose a related research agenda. Research implications: We affirm that a new field is in the making, with IJOPM as the leading professional journal. Further, more empirical research is called for, but particular methodological caution must be paid to the phenomenon of acting in subsidiaries. Originality: No coherent stream of research has addressed multi-plant improvement programmes. This paper represents a focused review that supports the further development of the field.

Company-specific production systems and competitive advantage: A resource-based view on the Volvo production system

Purpose – In order to improve competitiveness on a global scale, multinational enterprises increasingly develop a company-specific production system (XPS) and deploy it in their worldwide operations. An XPS is synonymous with a tailored corporate-wide improvement programme. The purpose of this paper is to explore the circumstances under which an XPS can provide a competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses an explorative case study methodology to investigate the link between the establishment of an XPS and competitive advantage. Specifically, the paper investigates the part of the Volvo Groups globally implemented Volvo production system (VPS) that aim to improve the manufacturing processes worldwide. Due to its historical trajectories, Volvo constitutes a unique case for studying the trend and effects of XPS. The resource-based view of the firm provides the theoretical foundation for the analysis. Findings – The paper concludes with four research propositions. P1: In industries w...

The Hybrid Structures of International New Ventures A Social Capital Approach and Research Agenda

This paper gives a social capital perspective on the internationalization process of new firms. The point of departure is international new ventures (INVs) and their frequent use of hybrid structures for government of international activities. The purpose is to shed new light on the INV phenomenon by studying the role of social relationships in the establishment, management and performance of international governance structures and access to resources for international market expansion. By combining knowledge from the international entrepreneurship literature with social capital theory, the authors construct several propositions on the relationship between properties of social capital embedded in the new firm and their ability to form effective international market channels and deliver high long-term performance. This conceptual study suggests that social capital is indeed conducive to the overall performance of INVs. However, empirical research is desirable – and, based on the propositions from this study, the authors propose a research agenda emphasizing the need for a longitudinal study of INV organizations with regard to the role of social capital in attracting and controlling international market resources.

The role of innovative and entrepreneurial behavior in internationalization processes

The study is based on reviews of the relevant parts of the IM and IE literatures. We only selected articles for review that explicitly deal with innovative or entrepreneurial behavior.

International New Ventures and the Development of Partnerships: A Social Capital Approach

International New Ventures (INVs) are firms which from inception seek to establish themselves in the international marketplace (McDougall, Shane and Oviatt, 1994). The frequency of INV establishments has increased rapidly during the last few decades(Aspelund and Moen,2001) andnow constitutes a significant part of the economy in most developed economies (Aspelund, Madsen and Moen, 2007). Studies have found that INVs differ from traditional exporters in several ways (McDougall et al., 1994; Madsen, Rasmussen and Servais, 2000; Rialp, Rialp and Knight, 2005; Aspelund and Moen, 2005) and that they follow a different path to success than traditional exporters.