Strategic paths and performance of born globals: a study of Indian IT firms

Abstract

Extant literature suggests that post entry internationalization strategies and performance implications of born globals is an under-researched area. In this paper, we examine the internationalization strategies of born global firms and performance implications thereof through strategic group analysis of hand collected data from Indian information technology firms. We identified four distinct strategic paths followed by born global firms. While some internationalization paths have performance differences others show equifinality. These performance differences primarily stem from the choice of degree of commitment and scope of internationalization. We also find that the nature of services and ways of mobilization or deployment of resources explain the different internationalization paths and consequently performance. Our paper contributes to the theory on born globals by using strategic lens to explain the internationalization paths and their performance implications. Further, our paper also provides distinct insights to practice by charting internationalization paths for an emerging born global firm.