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Research suggests that the small‐ and medium‐sized Western European firms interested in direct investment in the United States are reluctant to co‐operate with state governments in formulating investment decisions. Research findings in the Upper Mid‐west indicate that the primary motivation of these firms to invest in the Upper Mid‐west is to shelter capital. The amount of importance the individual state governments place on reverse direct investment politicises the entire process of solicitation of potential direct investors. As a result, the small‐ and medium‐sized Western European firms tend to seek direct investment assistance from professional private sources.

In this empirical study, export strategies of 131 California exporting manufacturers were examined. A factor analysis of fifty variables yielded five factors which were analysed subsequently through multiple discriminant analysis. Two of the five factors, strategic planning and export strategies, were found to be meaningful in discriminating between small and large exporters. Implications for managers are offered.

Until recently, little research has been directed at the measurement of the impact of governmental support on the firm. The major focus of this article is on the methodological and measurement issues that appear to have a confounding effect and may account for broad equivocality of the findings in many of the studies. An evaluation paradigm is developed and applied to the research reviewed. The article concludes with a synthesis of the issues and provides specific directions for future research.

This article reports the findings of a survey of export attitudes and behavior of small‐ and medium‐sized U.S. manufacturing firms. Companies are differentiated according to their growth expectations and the behaviors of firms that have export growth expectations are compared to the behavior of firms that do not anticipate export growth. The authors suggest that the export growth expectations of a firm shape its behavior in terms of contact activities and its perceptions of export problems. Recommendations are made regarding the use and helpfulness of outside information sources.

Present day literature on the general topic of export planning for international markets appears to be a repetition of standard works. It does not seem to be geared to the needs of managers of small exporting manufacturing concerns. The small businessman needs ways of analysing export markets, the potential exportability of his product, and, equally important, tools for predicting which products are likely to be threatened by import competition, and the appropriate marketing strategies to use in exporting.

The vast scope and range of International Marketing is reviewed in its entirety with a view to how the subject is and should be researched and taught. Definitions are questioned, and important gaps, societal trends and present‐day bad practices are identified that ought to feature more in our evaluation of the subject. The positioning of the academic community relative to the business community is discussed in terms of subject development. The dilemma is whether then to teach actual skills or develop knowledge and mental training. This paper questions the status quo. The deficiencies of the current International Marketing model are Western based and manufacturing rather than services oriented. Where are the countries in transition? International Marketing is questioned for its efficacy and as a body of knowledge. Finally, a wishlist of desirables is put forward as to what should unfold in the future in terms of subject development, regulation, funding, research opportunities and replication.

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.

Although unproven, many researchers have assumed that firm strategies remain constant over time, but such conclusions have resulted in conflicting generalizations. This study further extends the use of interpoint distance methodology to compare factor structures of marketing strategies of entrepreneurial technology firms at two points‐in‐time – 1989 and 1998.

This paper seeks to review the internationalisation strategies of Japanese and Singaporean firms within the context of Dunning, Hymer and Rugman.

The literature pertaining to culture, environment and Asian management is reviewed and the question is posed whether the management style is changing in response to global market convergence. The study used a mail questionnaire to explore the FDI factors deemed motivational for Japanese and Singapore managers.

The paper finds that managers need to consider the impact that environment and culture exerts on the decision‐making process as corporations expand their international reach.

One approach to explaining the theory as to why firms expand and perform at different speeds could be to suggest that the cognitive rationale that drives management thinking is environmentally dependent. This would appear plausible given that when the way in which managers make decisions across countries of the same region are compared, differences in thinking do occur. This then exerts an effect on the internationalisation paths pursued by firms.

This research questions the suitability of a “one size fits all” approach to internationalisation given the cultural variables that exist between markets. This builds on the literature that examines the suitability of market convergence but at the same time enables the evaluation of the extent to which Asian managers are driven by market capitalism theory at the organisational level.