The role of network relationships and social capital in foreign market entries of high tech INVs

Abstract

The dynamic aspect of social capital is a very promising topic for research in the field of International Entrepreneurship. There are some firms that internationalize rapidly and at a very early stage the so-called International New Ventures (INVs). The purpose of this article is to understand and explain how the three different roles of social capital, efficacy role, serendipity role and liability role influence early and later international market entries of nine Scottish and Greek high technology SMEs. The different roles of social capital are not clearly defined in the current literature. We found that the efficacy role played an important role to both early and later foreign market entries. The serendipity role of social capital occurred more times in Asian markets where the examined firms had very limited network relationships. The liability role was the less frequent observed role of social capital. We also found that Greek and Scottish entrepreneurs have different educational background.