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Entrepreneurial ventures from Latin American emerging economies are underexplored on the current international entrepreneurship literature. This paper is aimed to contribute empirical evidence on entrepreneurial ventures from Latin American emerging economies and their internationalization and value orientation. Based on the 2009 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data, we found that institutional voids on Latin American emerging economies were a double-edge sword: on one hand, inefficient and unregulated markets make ventures from Latin American emerging economies encounter the liability of their country of origin; on the other hand, less active governments and absence of influential NGOs alternatively trigger more social entrepreneurial opportunities, with some of them across the national border. Some entrepreneurs from Latin American emerging economies have been active in exploiting those international social opportunities. International social entrepreneurship can be regarded as an alternative solution to social problems which governments, NGOs, or for-profit ventures fail to tackle on Latin American emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends current understanding on international growth process of born global firms from the perspective of strategic decision-making. The data were collected from three software companies in Finland, Ireland and Israel both in real-time and retrospectively, and data triangulation was employed to increase the validity of the findings. With a longitudinal approach, we captured the dynamics of the post-entry international growth process and the critical events that act as decision-making triggers. The decision-making of born global firms seems to be characterised by alternating periods of causation- and effectuation-based logics. Triggers for amending the logic include, for example, change of key persons and the search for external funding. Co-existence of the two decision-making logics is possible, due to different degrees of uncertainty in market and technology or multiple decision-makers involved. The contribution of the study is threefold: first, it addresses gaps in international entrepreneurship research by describing how born global firms make strategic decisions and who are involved in the decision-making. Second, it identifies critical incidents which trigger a change in the decision-making process of a born global firm. Third, it provides alternative insights to why decision-making logic may change or why two decision-making logics may co-exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the interrelationships among the domestic institutional environment for entrepreneurship, a firm’s innovation capability, and an SME’s decision to grow using an internationalization or innovation-based strategy. The effects of both the external institutional environment and the internal dynamic capabilities on the firm’s subsequent performance are evaluated. Cross-sectional cross-industry data from 188 Russian SMEs were collected in order to address these issues. The results suggest that the initial decision of an SME to pursue an internationalization strategy is influenced by conditions in the cognitive institutional environment and the SME’s internal ability to innovate. The initial decision to pursue innovation-based growth, however, is affected only by a firm’s internal factors. However, the growth outcome depends on the normative institutional environment, in other words on favorable societal attitudes to the phenomenon of international entrepreneurship. The paper demonstrates the complexity of institution-based and resource-based factors that affect SME growth in emerging economies, and provides recommendations concerning strategic policy objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research findings suggest that networks offer small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) opportunities to internationalize successfully. However, the role of internal organizational competence in the process of developing and maintaining such networks in hostile external environments has received little attention. The aim of this study is to shed light on the relationship by examining the positive influence that the network competence of SMEs has on their propensity to internationalize, and on their subsequent international performance. Given that the willingness of firms to enter and perform well in markets appears to also depend on environmental hostilities, this external influence on SME internationalization is incorporated into the study. We also examine whether the level of environmental hostility moderates the relationship between network competence and SME internationalization. The empirical part of the study comprises a web survey of 298 Finnish SMEs representing five different industry sectors: metal, food, furniture, software, and knowledge-intensive business services. Confirmatory factor analysis and regression models are used in the analysis. The results indicate that higher levels of network competence are positively related to the propensity of SMEs to internationalize, as well as to their international performance. Conversely, the level of environmental hostility has a negative effect on the performance measure, but not on the internationalization propensity. Additionally, the influence of network competence is not moderated by environmental hostility. The results indicate that internal network competence and external environmental hostility play a role in SME internationalization, and that the positive influence of network competence exists independently of the hostility in the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to be able to seize the opportunities that a dynamic operating environment opens up, entrepreneurial firms have to reconfigure their existing asset base and processes. This study explores the effect of an entrepreneurial orientation and a firm's reconfiguring capabilities on international performance by using survey data from 217 manufacturing and service organizations. Our findings indicate that a firm's entrepreneurial orientation and reconfiguring capabilities have an effect on its international performance and provide empirical support for the dynamic capability view of the firm. Entrepreneurial behavior combined with organizational reconfiguring capabilities constitutes a potential source of competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a response to the increasing interest in the internationalisation of knowledge-intensive firms, a measure for analysing their international growth orientation was developed. This measure was applied in empirical setting of Finnish information and communication technology companies. The development of the measure as well as the empirical findings are described in detail, and the validity and the reliability of the measure was secured in various ways. The measure seems both viable and valid, and also the findings appear to be logical, and they give a good basis for further research on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small firms start operating internationally much more quickly than was previously the case. However, this requires that companies acquire resources and skills in a significantly shorter time than earlier. This paper discusses the pressures that such development puts on company boundaries from the viewpoint of Finnish ICT companies. Our findings indicate that the rapidity of internationalisation is positively correlated with the number of foreign partners but reverse to our expectations, i.e., the more partners the firm has, the slower its start of international operations. Additionally, the study confirmed that a rapidly internationalising firm has a narrowly defined core competence. Surprisingly, rapidly internationalising firms searched for partners with similar type of competence instead of complementary one. This indicates that the associations between core competence and rapid internationalisation deserves more attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the intent of the researchers Niina Nummela (Turku School of Economics and Business Administration) and Sami Saarenketo (Lappeenranta University of Technology) to find people for research collaboration on a project. They want to enquire the reasons behind empirical research's indication that all small firms do not intend to grow internationally, not even in knowledge-intensive industries. The pace of change in the economy has been accelerating, and the time span in all fields of business has generally shortened. The driving forces of globalisation are also influencing small and medium sized (SME) internationalisation. First, the barriers preventing SME internationalisation have been removed. Second, the increasing speed of business operations has been reflected in the internationalisation of small firms, which start operating internationally much more quickly than was previously the case.