Purpose: Using behavioral theory of the firm, the purpose of this paper is to examine how a small firm’s performance relative to historical and social aspirations is related to its international entrepreneurial orientation (IEO). This study also explores two environmental factors, liability...

Purpose: Much of the extant evidence in the marketing literature posits that firms use strategic alliances to share resources, costs and risks as paths to performance improvements. Drawing from the organizational ecology theory, this study aims to propose a different rationale, namely, that...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the strategic intentions of strategic alliances in technology industries. Design/methodology/approach: This paper mainly uses case studies as its methodology. Findings: This paper depicts how the possibilities of firms sharing resources,...

Purpose: Customers often trace a product-harm crisis to the deviant firm's capability- or character-relevant issues. This study examines how capability- and character-based stigma associated with product-harm crises influence foreign customers' product preferences (i.e. brand affect and...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to differentiate between intra- and inter-regional diversification and explore how each affects firm performance. Existing studies show that both intra- and inter-regional expansion provide benefits and incur costs but the findings are mixed. This study...

Purpose – In the past decade, Chinese enterprises have achieved superior cost advantages in the labor‐intensive industries. This paper explores the valuable resources that Chinese enterprises use to develop such advantages and the effective mechanisms they employ to sustain the advantages....

Purpose – The past decade has witnessed the growing importance of partnerships by small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Yet, despite the popularity and presumed strategic importance of partnerships, partnerships by SMEs often fail and many SMEs turn to self‐reliance operation modes....

How do exporting manufacturers exchange with their foreign intermediaries? This inductive study of 18 British manufacturers in China led to propositions exploring that question. The study suggests that the choice of exchange modes be determined by different factors in combination, including...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the early internationalization and the performance of small firms in technology‐intensive industries. Design/methodology/approach – Using a sample of 278 small US firms in technology‐intensive industries, this paper employs...

Should western exporting manufacturers use independent resident distributors or employee salesforce when they enter emerging markets? Existing theories provide different answers and contradict one another. This inductive study of 17 western exporting manufacturers led to propositions exploring...