Becoming a True Born Global without Any Experiential Market Knowledge: Three Chinese Cases

Internationalization processes have been very actively researched for about the last five decades. During this period, many views about companies’ foreign involvement have emerged. Some of them, including the Uppsala (U) model, the innovation-related internationalization (I) models and the Finnish (Helsinki) model, emphasize the importance of experiential knowledge for internationalization. They state that the lack of knowledge forces firms to internationalize slowly by entering culturally and geographically closest countries and by using initially simpler foreign operation modes such as direct and indirect exporting. Only after acquiring the necessary experiential knowledge are they able to enter other countries and use more complicated entry/operation modes. Some other research streams, including the literature on international new ventures, born globals and other fast internationalizers and the network approach to internationalization, have shown that internationalization does not have to be that slow, as knowledge can be also acquired by other means rather than through experience. Consequently, some enterprises may start their internationalization from farther markets, even from other continents, without having any activities on its home continent. They may also use more advanced entry modes and skip the earlier stages of internationalization.