Early and rapidly internationalizing ventures: Similarities and differences between classifications based on the original international new venture and born global literatures

The novel contribution of this article is that it compares classifications of early and rapidly internationalizing firms based on the original literature on International New Ventures (classification method based on speed and scope of internationalization) as well as the original literature on Born Globals (classification method based on speed and extent of internationalization). Evidence from a survey of almost 900 Danish manufacturers demonstrates that the two methods provide similar results with regard to overall patterns of internationalization, but that they classify individual firms quite differently. From a theoretical stance it is therefore recommended to incorporate a richer selection of indicators (aspects of speed, scope as well as extent) in order to secure higher comparability between studies.