The role of a strategic net in international entrepreneurship: overcoming the liabilities of foreignness and outsidership in the context of the Pharma industry

Abstract

International entrepreneurship is a promising research stream which focusses on how established firms expand internationally. This study aims to understand the role of a strategic net on the internationalisation process of the firms. By viewing internationalisation as a multilateral network development process, this paper focusses on the development of relationships induced by a strategic net and how those relationships can support firms to overcome both the liabilities of outsidership and foreignness as two different, yet interlinked processes. To this end, we perform a longitudinal exploratory case study of a strategic net in the Pharma industry. Our results show the following: First, the social exchange between the members of the strategic net enables the creation and exploration of opportunities for internationalisation. Second, the strategic net can be a mechanism for overcoming the liability of foreignness (a lack of institutional market knowledge) – especially in the context of heavily regulated industries. And, third, with regard to the liability of outsidership, when breaking into foreign networks, firms reflect their idiosyncratic capabilities and differentiated views in the creation and development of opportunities with specific counterparts.