Wait-and-see strategy: Risk management in the internationalization process model

Abstract

We interpret the wait-and-see strategy as a decision to maintain unchanged the firm’s commitments to its business network relationships. To explain why firms choose a wait-and-see strategy, we propose an extension to the relationship commitment decisions aspect of the Uppsala internationalization process (IP) Model. With this development, we explain that the wait-and-see strategy can result from a change in the levels of risk assumed in the firm and not only from the decision to adjust the risk that the firm encounters by changing commitments to its network relationships. This development enhances the ability of the IP model to accommodate contextual influences on relationship commitment decisions and to explain a more complete suite of internationalization trajectories. Extending the theoretical core of the IP model further confirms its efficacy, its application to international strategy, and its potential to be developed as a general process model of strategic change.