Identification of optimal international market strategies:comparative case study of Finnish health tech startups

Technological advancements and internationalisation has changed the dynamics of economic growth. As countries move towards entrepreneurial growth, the traditional large-scale organizations have become obsolete. Instead small and medium enterprises have contributed to the economy through job creation and increasing of exports. Technological start-ups with their lean structure and high growth have contributed to the economy manifold. In this regard Finland is known to have one of the leading start-up eco-systems globally. Health tech start-ups in Finland have contributed to economic growth through their exports and provided the country with an innovative technological base. They have further provided growth through job creation and foreign market penetration. This research is conducted to study the factors that enable a health tech start-up to internationalise and contribute to economic growth in Finland. Entrepreneurial orientation, market driven management, networking and culture are the internal and external factors associated with international entrepreneurship and studied in this research. Data was collected through semi structured interviews from three health tech start-ups in Finland, that have created an international customer base within the first six years of their operations. Results of the study show that entrepreneurial orientation when treated as a collective of its three constructs, innovativeness, risk taking and pro-activeness is an internal factor that enables a start-up to develop competitive advantage and seek international opportunities. Whereas market driven management was found essential for the start-ups to maintain that competitive advantage in international markets. Networking was found to have a significant impact on retention of international opportunities while culture did not seem to drive the international efforts of health tech start-ups.