Founder non-international experience and venture internationalization

Abstract

Generating international sales with high intensity and at an early point in time can significantly enhance a new venture’s performance and growth potential. This paper draws on human capital theory to develop and empirically test a model proposing that entrepreneurs’ prior founding experience enhances new ventures’ international sales intensity, while their prior domestic work experience diminishes such sales intensity. Further, our model proposes that prior founding and domestic work experience delay rather than speed up first international sales. Survey data on 100 international new ventures reveals that entrepreneurs’ prior founding experience postpones first international sales and that prior domestic work experience is negatively associated with ventures’ international sales intensity. Our findings illustrate the downsides of experience for new venture internationalization and indicate a greater need to consider types of experience outside the internationalization domain to understand important venture outcomes.