Geographic, cultural, and psychic distance to foreign markets in the context of small and new ventures

Abstract

More often than one might expect, small and new ventures, which already suffer from few resources and a lack of industry legitimacy, take on the additional uncertainties of entry into foreign markets. Some of these foreign entries involve countries that are geographically distant and culturally different from the firm's home country, making foreign market entry all the more difficult and uncertain. Recent studies have criticized prior academic approaches to understanding these difficulties. Insights may be limited if one uses merely the concept of distance and looks primarily for main effects. Entry by new and small ventures into distant foreign markets is complex, and the factors influencing it are interactive. The aim of this conceptual paper is to contribute to an understanding of the stability of the distance factors, and also the interactive effects between distance factors, market attractiveness, and network relationships, with particular attention to small and new ventures.