Internationalisation path heterogeneity and growth for international new ventures

Abstract

An increasing number of new venture firms are internationalising their business operations early in their lifecycles to achieve superior performance. Taking the perspective of dynamic capability theory, our study sheds light on the effect that heterogeneity in experiential learning has on international new venture (INV) growth in terms of a curvilinear relationship. Specifically, we introduce the concept of internationalisation path heterogeneity to capture the path-specific features of INV experiential learning and capability building and explore the relationship between internationalisation path heterogeneity and INV firm growth. We also argue that this relationship will be moderated by environmental munificence because the cost and benefit of path heterogeneity is bounded. We test the hypotheses based on empirical analysis of a longitudinal dataset of 1054 INVs from 58 countries. Overall, this study provides a dynamic and fine-grained view of the role played by internationalisation path heterogeneity in driving the growth of INVs.