Enacting international opportunities: The role of organizational learning in knowledge-intensive business services

Abstract

This paper examines how organizational learning processes affect the enactment of international opportunities. Building on the internationalization process theory, we explore the relationship between learning and international resource commitment decision. Based on in-depth interviews with owner-managers of small knowledge-intensive business services firms, results show that (1) knowledge acquisition for international opportunity enactment comes from various sources and means; (2) knowledge institutionalization can follow four different paths, but sometimes lapses; (3) learning outcomes are not always positive; and (4) as firms grow, knowledge management and diffusion processes increase in complexity. Managerial and theoretical implications are discussed.