Abstract We examine firms’ international alliances and acquisitions and their implications for firms’ corporate communications in earnings calls. Building upon and extending existing research, we argue that international alliances and acquisitions directly augment the information asymmetry problem between firms and capital markets. By delving into how executives and analysts interact to address asymmetries in information during earnings calls, we bring new attention to financial markets as an important factor market in research on internationalization. Findings from detailed information on executives’ information disclosures as well as analysts’ questions provide evidence on how international corporate activity affects the way in which firms engage with capital markets and the investing public.

Abstract Research suggests that accelerated internationalization is accidental and that a firm-specific business model (BM) determines which firms become accelerated internationalizers and which become gradual internationalizers. However, in analysing entrepreneurs adopting different internationalization types (accelerated and gradual) from Finland, New Zealand and Sweden, we find a complex interplay between entrepreneurs’ mindsets and emerging BM practices with respect to their internationalizing firms. These practices enable small international firms to eliminate the time and cost penalties associated with the triple liabilities of accelerated internationalization (i.e., newness, outsidership and smallness). This study contributes to the literature by reconciling the alternative explanations offered in previous research and reveals how entrepreneurs’ global and regional mindsets affect their BM practices, leading to different international trajectories. It further contributes by showing that the entrepreneur’s role may be more important than that of the BM.

Abstract This study investigates the decision criteria that entrepreneurs apply when choosing growth modes to internationalize their business. Specifically, we examine how market characteristics and experience impact the selection of organic, acquisitive, or collaborative growth strategies. Data on 1,080 mode decisions were collected in conjoint experiments and analyzed using hierarchical multinomial logistic regression. We find that barriers to entry and competitive intensity are the most determining market factors, and that international and mode-related experiences have considerable moderating effects. Our findings indicate that imitative behavior and normative preferences are less prevalent in entrepreneurial than in corporate decision-making.

Abstract This paper addresses the regional and global strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs), with an application to the largest Swiss companies. We extend Rugman and Verbeke’s (2004) classic approach to measure MNE globalization by adopting a multidimensional lens, whereby we focus on four distinct parameters that evaluate respectively: market success across geographic space (proxied by sales); investments as a response to foreign business opportunities (proxied by assets); human capital (as proxied by the employees’ geographic distribution); and knowledge capital (as measured by patented innovations). We observe substantial discrepancies in globalization levels according to the parameter used. According to this study, the largest segment of companies (42.1%) remains home-regional in terms of sales. Bi-regional firms constitute the second largest category, comprising 28.9% of the sample. Only 21.1% of the companies can be classified as global in terms of sales distribution. Upstream activities such as knowledge capital seem to be more home-region oriented than downstream activities. One critical conclusion of this study is that not a single large Swiss MNE can be considered global in terms of knowledge capital creation.