Abstract
In recent years so-called Gazelle firms or high growth firms (H.G.F.s) have been the interest of policymakers, however little is known about entrepreneur-level determinants affecting internationalisation of these firms. Thus, the research aims to extend the literature addressing the impact of entrepreneurs' characteristics on the internationalisation of H.G.F.s in Lithuania. The research sample was drawn from the population of Lithuanian H.G.F.s directly approaching the owners and members of the management team. The final sample included 177 internationalised firms. The analysis was based on the binomial logistic regression to test the hypotheses. The results reveal that entrepreneurial networks and foreign language capabilities of owners/managers are good predictors of internationalisation degree. However, the research confirms the decreasing effect of domestic ties, the higher degree of internationalisation. The research did not reveal the significance of entrepreneurial and managerial competencies of owners/managers for internationalisation success. Furthermore, the study did not support the relationship of owners/managers' education abroad and internationalisation. The research makes the twofold contribution to the extant literature. First, the research develops and tests the relationships surrounding the internationalisation of H.G.F.s as related to managerial and entrepreneurial competencies, entrepreneurial networks and international background of owners/managers. Second, the research highlights entrepreneur-level determinants affecting internationalisation of H.G.F.s in Central and Eastern European (C.E.E.) country’s context.
Highlights
High growth firms (H.G.F.s) demonstrate an exceptional contribution to employment, structural and economic change
The investigations performed in the U.K. and Germany revealed that internationalisation of high-tech startups leads to faster growth in comparison to the firms which only operate in the domestic market (Bu€rgel, Fier, Licht, & Murray, 2010)
Though entrepreneurial competence linked to the observation of the environment, selection of opportunities and formulation of appropriate strategies appears to be important in crucial stages of the firm’s development, our results demonstrate that entrepreneurial competence does not predict higher internationalisation degree
Summary
While a number of studies investigated firm-level drivers and barriers to growth (Pereira & Temouri, 2018), limited consideration was given to the owner/manager operating in the particular domestic context. While the studies investigated the R&D behaviour of the firms and the impact of institutional environment of C.E.E. countries on H.G.F.s (Pereira & Temouri, 2018), internationalisation of H.G.F.s is almost neglected. Though the rapid mass privatisation destroyed systems, grounded in centrally planned economies, C.E.E. countries lack strong institutional foundations (Wadhwa, McCormick, & Musteen, 2017) These obstacles determine that the overall environment of C.E.E. countries appears to be less attractive for entrepreneurship and international growth of small domestic firms (Korsakiene, Diskiene, & Smaliukiene, 2015).
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