The Internationalization Process within Born Global Companies : How Swedish Born Globals Utilize Resources in the Internationalization Process

Abstract: The purpose with this thesis is to explain and explore how born global companies utilize important resources in the internationalization process. The globalized world that we live in today has increased the information sharing and new technologies have changed the way companies approach the international market. Evidence in previous literature has revealed that companies have a faster approach to the international market and tend to skip the incremental internationalization process that the traditional Uppsala internationalization model supports. These companies have instead been defined as born global companies that set up their activity targeting a market that is either global by nature or within a niche field that has a very limited potential on the domestic market. We have based on the existing literature of born global companies found a research gap that this thesis aims to fill, and that is to contribute with new understandings about which resources that are utilized during the internationalization process. In order to find an answer to this research gap, a research question was formed as follows: which resources are important for the born global company and how are resources utilized during the internationalization process? A framework has been created from the previous literature and we could see that much of the existing research was conducted on the born global company´s networks, knowledge and the lack of financial capital. We could moreover see that the characteristic of the founder was seen as important but that not much of the literature actually dealt with the importance of the resources at different stages in the internationalization process. In our methodology, we have used a point of departure in where the world is socially constructed and that every situation incorporates some elements of interpretive judgments. We have furthermore used an inductive approach and collected the data from qualitative case study interviews, in order to reveal new findings rather than to test existing theory. Our empirical data consists of findings from nine born global companies as well as three Incubator centers from the northern part of Sweden. The reason to include the Incubator centers in this thesis is to give the thesis a dimension of which resources experts within the field of start-ups companies believe are important for born global companies to possess in the internationalization process. All our companies are moreover located in the northern part of Sweden and can be seen as technology driven companies. The research reveals interesting findings about which resources that were utilized and when in the internationalization process resources were seen as important. The technological knowledge was found to be important early on in the internationalization process while competence of market and sales were seen as missing in the initial stage. The amount of financial capital was moreover often perceived as adequate in the early internationalization phase but inadequate in a later stage when the company wanted to expand and thus acquire more resources. Resources related to networks were seen as the most important resources and it tends to be personal networks early on in the internationalization process. These networks were seen as shifting more towards the company´s networks, as contacts with resellers, distributors as well as collaborations with partners were created during the internationalization process.