Swedish Perspectives of International Entrepreneurship

Recent research has focused on factorsinfluencing the success of business endeavors in the international market;however, few of these studies have considered the role of domestic businessoperations and knowledge accumulation upon internationalization.Further,the length of duration of domestic operations has never been considered whenexploring this knowledge accumulation among firms. The learning processamong internationalizing firms has been under researched, so a review of theprevious research regarding lower and higher orders of learning ispresented. Based upon the past research, three hypotheses regarding domestic operationsand international knowledge are proposed; lengthier domestic operations yield1) a lack of foreign business knowledge, 2) a lack of foreign institutionalknowledge, and 3) a lack of internationalization knowledge. To test these hypotheses, data are collected via surveys from Swedish firms(n=206) in a variety of industries. The data are analyzed utilizing manytools, including the LISREL model. The results are discussed, and thefindings indicate support for hypothesis three concerning internationalizationknowledge.Hypotheses one and two are not fullysupported.Internationalization is less problematic for firms that exploreinternational markets soon after inception, as opposed to firms that initiallyestablish domestic operations and then seek to expand. Lengthy domesticoperations before expansion, with its development of routines and mental modelsfor that context,may impede organizational learning aboutinternationalization and the development of the new knowledge and mental modelsneeded. (AKP)