The deployment and internationalization speed of e-business in the digital entrepreneurship era

Babak Ziyae,Seyed Mojtaba Sajadi,Mohammad Hassan Mobaraki

doi:10.1186/s40497-014-0015-2

Abstract

Digital Entrepreneurship has revolutionized worldwide businesses. Worked by the fast development of computer knowledge, Electronic Businesses (here in after acronym as EBSs) are experiencing the increasing growth in the global economy. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of entrepreneurs’ international experience, innovation capability, and market capability on the internationalization speed of EBSs. The current study is considered as an empirical research and the research methodology is descriptive-correlative type. The data collected fromSmall and Medium-Sized Enterprises (here after acronym as SMEs) whose activities are partially internet-based and have involved in the international business processes. A total of 135SMEsin the textile cluster were classified as the internet-based businesses. To test the research hypotheses, the study used Structure Equation Modeling (SEM) and the collected data were subjected to correlational analysis and path analysis. The results revealed that the speed of foreign market entry by EBSs is positively affected by entrepreneurs’ international experience, business innovation capability, and marketing capability. Finally, this study proposes insights for future studies that could consider the implications of speedy entry into foreign markets by EBSs.

Highlights

Nowadays, the digital economy has encouraged businesses to develop their activities beyond their internal markets (Kempster and Cope, 2010)
The findings of this study which are consistent with the previous efforts in the international entrepreneurship literature (e.g., Carroll and Shabana, 2010; Cox and Wicks, 2011; Santos and Ruffin, 2010) indicate that the internationalization speed is a substantial tool for effective international entrepreneurship.The results of the current study show that there is a positive and significant relationship between entrepreneurs’ international experience, innovation capability, and marketing capability as exogenous variables and the speed of internationalization as the endogenous variable
The effect of antecedents of internationalization speed indicates Iranian EBSs in the textile cluster should concentrate on the international market niches by leveraging the innovative marketing strategies Electronic Supply Chain Management (E-SCM), and other promotional activities

Summary

Introduction

The digital economy has encouraged businesses to develop their activities beyond their internal markets (Kempster and Cope, 2010). The speed of internationalization among SMEs is the issue that has attracted most attention in international digital entrepreneurship (Edmans, 2011). International entrepreneurial orientation, such as innovativeness, risk-taking, proactiveness, and aggressiveness suggest that a particular cognition may play an important role in internationalization and its speed (Santos and Ruffin, 2010). Few studies have been conducted on variousaspects of internationalization in the electronic markets space and despite the vital role of foreign entry modes, only a handful studies have examinedwhat modes EBSs use internationally

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion