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The study is based on reviews of the relevant parts of the IM and IE literatures. We only selected articles for review that explicitly deal with innovative or entrepreneurial behavior.

This review aims to focus on the phenomenon of infant firms that operate internationally right from or close to inception, so‐called international new ventures (INVs) or born global firms. It also aims to provide a comprehensive review of the literature on INVs from the time when such firms emerged in the literature in the early 1990s up until today.

The study is a systematic review of top journals within entrepreneurship, marketing and management over the years 1992‐2004. The focus is primarily on studies with empirical evidence and the review is narrative in nature. The study presents and discusses findings related to the founding of the firm, organizational features, environmental factors, and their influence on market strategy and firm performance.

The study finds great heterogeneity on the factors examined within this relatively narrow defined group of firms. This leads the study to conclude that normative linear models of international expansion render little explanatory and predictive value to the study of these firms.

The study concludes that recent empirical findings on INVs offer insight beyond traditional models of internationalization, and that more theory driven research in the area is required. The paper suggests application of general theories of organizations on the INV phenomenon in an attempt to understand international expansion and market strategies of new firms.

The study represents a comprehensive review of the literature on INVs and serves well as an introduction to the field for students, managers and scholars.

The study offers a much needed recapitulation of the empirical evidence in a relatively new field of research. It offers guidance for future research in a field of research that is still in its infancy.

This paper deals with the effects of firm age on export behavior and performance for small exporters. Using market and technology trends from the last decades, we have classified three generations of small exporters: the traditional, the flexible specialists, and the Born Globals. Building upon a sample of Norwegian exporters these three generations of exporting firms are compared using competitive advantage, manager orientation, export motives, and export strategy. The results revealed several significant distinguishing features between the generations. Important differences were the strong technological competitiveness, niche focus and widespread use of advanced communication technology in the two groups of recently established exporters compared to the older, traditional exporters. The study also showed that the various generations of firms had different export performance antecedents. Key factors for the Born Globals were found to be technological advantage and niche focus combined with strong customer orientation. Among both the other groups — traditional exporters and flexible specialists — marketing advantage, product quality, and various manager orientation factors were important performance determinants. It seems that firm behavior and performance are partly contingent upon the environmental context in existence during the firm's year of establishment, which results in systematic differences between the generations of exporting firms. As the firm's year of establishment has often been a neglected variable in international marketing research, these results suggest we should pay more attention to firm age in future studies, as both export behavior and performance determinants vary between different generations of exporting firms. This study further concludes that we can now distinguish a new generation of exporters; the Born Global firms. One of the most important characteristics of these firms is their speed of internationalization; just a few years after establishment the Born Global firms achieve considerable sales in a number of export markets.

To advance the productivity of all plants in the network, multinational corporations develop and deploy multi-plant improvement programmes. In this paper, the authors systematically review and synthesise the emerging literature on multi-plant improvement programmes. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Through a systematic manual search, the authors examine 15 top journals from operations management, general management and international business literature in the time span between 1998 and 2011.

The authors found 30 papers that specifically deal with operational improvement programmes in a multi-plant international setting, of which only nine take a headquarter perspective. This low number contrasts sharply with the magnitude and importance of such programmes in industry. The authors discuss key dimensions that explain how multi-plant improvement programmes result in the adopting, adapting, acting or avoiding of programme practices in subsidiaries and propose a related research agenda.

The authors affirm that a new field is in the making, with IJOPM as the leading professional journal. Further empirical research is called for, but particular methodological caution must be paid to the phenomenon of acting in subsidiaries.

No coherent stream of research has addressed multi-plant improvement programmes. This paper represents a focused review that supports the further development of the field.

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the actual use and market performance effects of information and communication technologies (ICT) with regard to international business‐to‐business marketing activities of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs).

The analysis is based on survey data from 635 Danish and Norwegian SMEs with international marketing activities. The two primary research questions regarding actual use and performance effects are addressed by descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling, respectively.

Findings suggest that, contrary to expectation, Norwegian and Danish international SMEs are not heavy users of ICT. Rather, ICT is predominantly used for market information search and to develop long‐term customer relationships. In both those areas the use of ICT is positively associated with the firm's satisfaction with its development of new market knowledge. The use of ICT for sales purposes is limited and apparently negatively associated with the firm's satisfaction with its development of new market knowledge. There is no significant association between the use of ICT and the firm's satisfaction with its international performance.

This study contributes with new knowledge regarding the potential and limitations of the use of ICT in international business‐to‐business marketing. Heavy usage of ICT seems to be primarily directed towards information search and relationship development. The study also supports that ICT usage have positive impact on the accumulation of new market knowledge (and indirectly on international performance). Use of ICT for sales activities seems to be quite limited, and perhaps not even advisable. The reason for this may be that media richness associated with face‐to‐face interaction is beneficial for establishment of commitment and trust.

This paper makes an original contribution to the field of knowledge regarding the potential (and limitations) of ICT in international business‐to‐business marketing.

In order to improve competitiveness on a global scale, multinational enterprises increasingly develop a company-specific production system (XPS) and deploy it in their worldwide operations. An XPS is synonymous with a tailored corporate-wide improvement programme. The purpose of this paper is to explore the circumstances under which an XPS can provide a competitive advantage.

The paper uses an explorative case study methodology to investigate the link between the establishment of an XPS and competitive advantage. Specifically, the paper investigates the part of the Volvo Group's globally implemented Volvo production system (VPS) that aim to improve the manufacturing processes worldwide. Due to its historical trajectories, Volvo constitutes a unique case for studying the trend and effects of XPS. The resource-based view of the firm provides the theoretical foundation for the analysis.

The paper concludes with four research propositions. P1: In industries with widespread XPS implementation, an XPS is a necessary resource for achieving competitive parity; P2a: Early-starters get an instant temporary competitive advantage; P2b: Late-starters can achieve a temporary competitive advantage if they implement an XPS at a faster speed than competitors; and P3: An XPS can provide a sustainable competitive advantage if it has a superior fit with other path-dependent resources in the organisation.

The paper proposes an updated VRIO model, which is better suited for understanding the relations between an XPS and competitive advantage. The major limitation of the study is the single-case design, which complicates generalisation from the VPS to an XPS of the propositions set forward.

Despite the significant trend in modern operations management, XPSs have received remarkably limited attention from academia except for the Toyota Production System. Presumably, this is the first paper to discuss the recent trend of XPS and its contribution to competitive advantage.

The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the conceptual frameworks and concepts with which the research on internationalization patterns of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) should be conducted.

A comprehensive overview of concepts and a conceptual framework to study internationalization patterns of SMEs is offered.

The complexities of existing definitions and methodologies for researching internationalization patterns are highlighted, and a synthesis of the issues is provided. An integrative model of internationalization pathways, and their antecedents and outcomes is presented.

It is recommended that future research focuses especially on the time dimension of internationalization patterns. Future research can contribute to the literature by adopting a longitudinal approach with larger samples and more detailed cases to capture the dynamics of internationalization.

Practitioners might map their positions, and look for challenges and opportunities with regard to their chosen internationalization pattern. They can also benchmark other firms’ pathways and fine‐tune their own approach to internationalization.

The paper integrates a large body of research in an important research area in international marketing. It also provides guidance on how to conduct future research in the area, and introduces the content of this special issue of the International Marketing Review.