Internationalization of firms from emerging economies: an organizational learning framework

Abstract

Increasing globalization of economy has provided fresh impetus to internationalization efforts of firms from both developed and emerging economies. Extant research in this area has been carried out with the perspective of firms from developed economies. The issue of internationalization efforts by firms from emerging economies has received sparse attention. Further, multiple theories have been applied to examine this subject. Rarely the issue has been seen as multidimensional and as set of decisions that involve tradeoff. This paper attempts to bridge this gap by suggesting an integrative framework to look at internationalization as a multidimensional phenomenon. The framework is grounded in resource based view, organizational learning, and institutional theories. In addition, internationalization effort by a firm has been treated, as a separate decision not related with earlier or concurrent internationalization efforts with its own unique dimensions. This essentially means that internationalization process is highly context specific.