From the left: Sara Melén, Emilia Rovira Nordman, Dharma Deo Sharma, Angelika Lindstrand, Angelika Löfgren, Daniel Tolstoy
Difficulties concerning culture, regulations and especially the ability to find and evaluate business partners often become obstacles for firms when entering new markets. Two factors that have proven to affect the success of internationalization are:
- The firms’ abilities to gain and use knowledge based on previous experiences
- The use of business network relationships to gain these experiences.
Learning trough experience on foreign market reduces the risks and gives the firm courage to explore business opportunities. If the firm can use and manage its experiences this will have a positive effect on firm performance and continued international expansion. The knowledge needed comes from doing business within the firm’s network. Without this learning in networks firms’ internationalization will not succeed.
The main focus of the International Marketing Group is to study these factors and their influence on firms’ international expansion. Our studies aim at finding out how companies acquire, transfer and use experiences and knowledge gained in international business networks, and how knowledge affects the performance of the firm in respect to:
- continued internationalization
- development of old and new business relationships
- financial performance
The harmonisation of laws and regulations within EU, GATT and WTO influence the institutional frameworks that surround companies. Consequently we investigate how cultural and institutional differences shape a company’s ability to gain knowledge and develop business relationships.
The creation of new business, the coordination of business relationships and the way firms communicate (face-to-face or with information technology) influence the internationalization and are a part of our studies. We study different industries, sizes of firms, old and new firms, born global and high tech firms.
We do both quantitative and qualitative studies including two large surveys and numerous case studies, a large portion of which are longitudinal.
Our studies provide answers to questions concerning best practices and successful internationalization. They will also answer questions regarding what role a network can play for a company’s ability to acquire, transfer and use knowledge. In addition we show how companies can handle their newly found knowledge in a more efficient way in relation to the internationalisation of operations. By deepening and renewing the research and knowledge about these central issues our aim is to enrich existent internationalisation theory.
Projects:
- The internationalization process of SMEs and born globals- a knowledge based explanation
- Business creation in international networks
- The means of interaction for internationalising SMEs
- Banks and SMEs international expansion
- International retailing
- The usefulness of network experiential knowledge
- International business management through network routines
- Network coordination capability
- Customer networks in internationalization
- Internationalization of supply chains