This is the lead article to this special issue of International Marketing Review focusing on the internationalisation process of firms. It elaborates on the importance of the topic and provides an overview of the seven selections included in the issue. Observations of the Single European Market...

Can the worst time for an organisation provide the best circumstances for management learning? One UK local authority began a management development programme 18 months before a wholescale reorganisation. This was not regarded as a rational thing to do. Explores the messiness and the politics...

Provides results from a postal survey of machine tool importers in the UK, designed to research trends in importing and marketing in the industry in the light of environmental factors such as EC integration, the integration of machine tool systems and competitive pressures. The results indicate...

Explores explanations for the continuance of agents or distributors and sales subsidiaries as international market entry and development modes and channels of distribution in the machine tool industry in the UK, and for entry mode evolution. Data were collected by in‐depth interviews with...

Presents the results of an empirical study of the activities of US multinationals manufacturing in Scotland. Provides an examination of the aspects of strategies for market entry and development. Concentrates specifically on market planning issues, providing data illustrating some of the...

Explores the entrepreneurial underpinning of the low export involvement level of manufacturing firms from Nigeria, a sub‐Sahara African, developing country. Using a pre‐validated export‐entrepreneurial orientation construct (and a 78‐firm representative sample), a high versus low...

Describes the use of safety attitudes as the basis for an intervention to improve safety performance in a power generation company. Following an initial survey using the safety attitude questionnaire developed by the SRU, a set of initiatives was developed. The initiatives included setting up...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to undertake an analysis of the implications of potential Scottish independence for inward foreign direct investment (FDI), multinational enterprise strategies and the local economy. Design/methodology/approach – This paper takes a multidisciplinary...