International Entrepreneurial Culture and Growth of International New Ventures

A premise in the international new venture (INV) literature is that a strong entrepreneurial orientation distinguishes an INV’s behaviour over time. Employing the concept of international entrepreneurial culture (IEC), which provides a holistic operationalisation of international entrepreneurship, we provide evidence from a longitudinal case study of four Finnish INVs as they grow over time. The findings suggest that various IEC dimensions affect the growth of INVs across their different phases. Although international motivation, innovation propensity, risk attitude, market orientation and proactiveness positively affect advancement through the early INV growth phases, their effect is negative in the later phases. International learning and networking positively affect INV growth throughout all its phases. The motivation of INVs towards the global rather than the international marketplace largely dictates a born global instead of a born international path. The contribution of the study is that it suggests that the nature and intensity of the “entrepreneurialness” of INVs change during their growth. The findings challenge the implicit rationale in the literature, according to which INVs consistently exhibit a strong entrepreneurial orientation. It is advisable to harness most aspects of entrepreneurialness during the later phases of born global firms.