How Digitalization Changes the Internationalization of Entrepreneurial Firms: Theoretical Considerations and Empirical Evidence
Fachartikel 688
Fachbereich
Betriebswirtschaftslehre
Fachrichtung
Marketing/Absatz
Artikel
2018
Sprache
englisch
Co Autoren
Andreas Wittkopf; Katrin Zulauf
Beschreibung
The internationalization of firms has mainly been analyzed and explained by
considering observations in a pre-digital business environment. Thus, the applicability
of the internationalization theories to digital ways of conducting business needs to be
challenged. Recent research on the internationalization of digital firms attempts to
adapt existing international business literature to the digital market. However, these
studies consider internet-based companies predominantly as a homogeneous group. It
is a popular opinion that digital internationalization is faster, cheaper, and easier for
digital companies. The purpose of this article is to develop a comprehensive
understanding of how internet-based companies internationalize in the digital market
and why their internationalization processes differ from one another. Based on an
overview of the specificities of the digital marketplace and their impacts on the
applicability of the traditional international business theories, we develop a
differentiated view of digital internationalization. Subsequently, the theoretical results
are compared with primary data derived from six semi-structured interviews with
representatives of digital companies. So far, the business internationalization theory
has focused on variables such as efficiencies of the value chain, internal capabilities,
and resource endowments. Our results show that even if these theories still have high
impacts on the internationalization strategies of internet-based companies, in the
highly dynamic digital markets, further variables need to be considered. In addition to
the impacts of value creation and delivery infrastructure (e.g., firm-specific capabilities
and resources), the specific way of creating value and the individual customer interface
used by a digital business play key roles in digital internationalization.
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