Search results

This paper aims to summarize the literature (journal articles and book chapters) on Central and Eastern European (CEE) firms’ outward internationalization failures: definitions and understandings of “failure”, “failed” firms’ internationalization processes, causes of “failed” initial and subsequent foreign activities and consequences of “failed” internationalization.

This systematic-narrative hybrid literature review article focuses on CEE firms’ outward internationalization failures.

The paper demonstrates that different objective and subjective measures were used for defining and measuring “failure”. Consensus regarding which firms (from slow internationalizers to born globals) can be considered “failed” is lacking. In different studies, internal and external causes of CEE firms’ outward internationalization “failure” and internationalization-related and other consequences of “failed” internationalization also vary considerably. Due to the complexity of the “failure” phenomenon, it is impossible to identify the most characteristic type of “failed” internationalization or offer “optimal” advice for avoiding failures.

The author is not aware of any other literature review articles focused on CEE firms’ outward internationalization failures. This article contributes to the (international) business and (international) entrepreneurship literature focused on failures, exits and institutional and other factors affecting them.

This paper aims to give an overview of the literature on Central and Eastern European (CEE) firms’ successful internationalization: different authors’ understanding of success, and, thereafter, these firms’ internationalization processes, external factors, internal motivators and actions that affect successful internationalizers’ initial and subsequent foreign activities, and, finally, internationalization outcomes.

This is a systematic-narrative hybrid literature review paper that focuses on CEE firms’ successful internationalization.

This paper concludes that CEE firms’ “success” is understood and measured differently, successful internationalizers can experience various internationalization paths, they are affected by a large number of external impact factors, internal motivators or actions and their internationalization outcomes vary considerably. Thus, there is no “ideal” type of successful internationalization: as different CEE firms can be called “successful”, they also follow different trajectories to achieve success.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first literature review paper that gives an overview on how success has been defined in studies about CEE firms’ internationalization, if some types of internationalizers have been considered more successful and if there are any important CEE-specific contextual factors or not.

This paper aims to find out what kind of export and failure risk patterns exist among young Estonian manufacturing exporters and explore their interlinkages.

The sample consisted of 208 young Estonian manufacturing exporters. Based on internationalization literature, export patterns were detected with a consecutive three-stage clustering of export sales share from total sales, outside-Europe sales share from export sales and number of target markets, while failure risk patterns were detected by clustering failure probabilities obtained from a universal prediction model. The interconnection of export patterns with financial ratios and failure risk patterns was studied with statistical tests.

Six main internationalization patterns existed. In all, 49 per cent of firms exported to a single European market and their export share was constantly very low, while even most of the firms with high export shares (39 per cent of the sample) were also active on one European market. In terms of failure risk patterns, 49 per cent of firms had constantly very low failure risk, while 51 per cent of firms had medium risk. Higher export engagement did not lead to better financial performance or lower failure risk.

This study is the first to find out if firms following different export patterns are also characterized by specific financial performance and failure risk. In addition, studies encompassing young exporters’ specific target markets and failure risk development are rare. While exporters’ and non-exporters’ financial performance differences have been frequently documented in favor of the former, this study found no such differences for different types of young exporters.

This paper aims to examine the role of tourist-generated and other network relationships in small Italian wineries’ internationalization.

It is based on 14 cases of which four are discussed in detail. All 14 cases are summarized in two tables and analyzed in the Discussion section.

Most firms did not pre-plan their foreign activities. International wine tourism was a major source for creating the contacts necessary for their internationalization: they created relationships/networks in tourists’ home markets and, as a result, expanded there either through selling directly to tourists or to the importers they recommended. In addition, they relied on contacts created at trade fairs or by friends/relatives. Some internationalization attempts failed, as the firms were passive and lacked long-term strategic plans. Thus, these producers have not fully realized the potential of wine tourists’ contacts and other network relationships in their internationalization.

It shows how wineries benefited from tourists’ networks and other co-operative relationships and how, as a result, they started exporting, but also which problems they faced. These topics have not received considerable research attention yet.

This paper aims to detect failure processes of French exporting firms and study their contingency with export processes.

The sample consisted of 131 bankrupted exporting firms from Bureau van Dijk’s Amadeus database. Factor and cluster analyses of six financial variables from Laitinen’s (1991) model were used to detect failure processes. Export processes were detected with cluster analysis of export share in total turnover. Contingency between failure and export processes was studied with a statistical test.

Three different failure processes existed for exporting firms. Two of these processes, which accounted for 79 per cent of firms, were classified as gradual failure: a step-by-step worsening of financial performance before the bankruptcy was declared. One was a symbiotic process reflecting varying pre-bankruptcy behaviours of different financial variables. Two different types of exporters existed. Most firms (77 per cent) were occasional exporters, while 23 per cent were constantly and more strongly involved in international markets before their bankruptcy was declared. There was no contingency between failure and export processes.

This study is the first one to detect failure processes specifically for exporting firms based on financial variables. In line with previous literature about non-exporting firms, gradual failure processes were most characteristic to exporting firms. The study shows that different types of exporters were not characterized by any unique behaviour of financial variables before their bankruptcy was declared.

This paper aims to find out if different exporter types dominate among matched mature Spanish and Estonian firms and whether these types are associated with specific export growth/decline patterns.

This study is based on firm-level data from the Estonian Business Register’s database of annual financial reports and SEPI Foundation’s survey on Spanish firms’ business strategies. From both countries, 242 firms were included and the period 2009-2013 was chosen.

Committed exporters (with 75 per cent or higher export shares) dominated in Estonia and experimental exporters (with export shares mostly below 10 per cent) in Spain. While in Estonia, the most frequent export growth/decline pattern encompassed four consecutive growth years, in Spain, it had two consecutive growth years and then two decline years. Spanish firms’ export growth/decline patterns were more random: 12 patterns of 16 fell within the range of a random walk assumption, while in Estonia, only 5 patterns were within the range. Contingency existed between exporter types and export growth/decline patterns only for the whole sample.

This paper studies if committed/aggressive/active exporters experience more export fluctuations than passive/experimental exporters, and how random export growth/decline patterns are.

This paper aims to study how firms’ export behavior is associated with their corporate governance.

This study uses whole population data of Estonian small and medium-sized enterprises: 9,530 exporters and 73,619 non-exporters. Several theory-driven corporate governance variables and exporting variables (based on previous studies) are used. Binary logistic regression is applied to study how exporters’ corporate governance differs from that of non-exporters. Eight additional continuous dependent variables are used to portray exporters’ internationalization with ordinary least squares regression. The robustness of the obtained base results is checked for younger/older and smaller/larger firms.

Having female board members did not lead to a higher likelihood of export activities. Experience – tenure’s length, board members’ age and other board memberships – provided mixed results. Having a larger board was associated with a higher export propensity and larger exports but a lower export share. A larger share of a chief executive officer’s shareholding was associated with lower export propensity, exporting less overall and activities on a smaller number of markets. The presence of a majority owner was associated with larger export share and export turnover, but more focus on the main export market. Firm age and size affected the results.

Previous studies about the interconnection of corporate governance and exporting have relied on varied theoretical explanations and limited sets of variables. This paper provides an extensive insight by using corporate governance variables emergent from various theoretical explanations accompanied by a large set of dependent exporting variables. The latter enables obtaining a more holistic view of the interconnection between the two phenomena.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the national education standard (curriculum, NC) supports the development of enterprising behaviour and the constructivist approach to learning at the general education level?

New methodology was designed based on the assessment of the evidence and frequency of the incidence of the indicators supporting enterprising behaviour in the text of the NC. A content analysis method is used to systematically code and categorize the target indicators from the text of the NC. According to the frequency of indicators that support enterprising behaviour the extent of support is assessed in different parts of the NC.

The findings of this study show that, while the general part of the NC fully reflects the development of attitudes and skills related to enterprising behaviour, in the competences and learning outcomes of the other parts of the NC, some indicators of enterprising behaviour have only moderate support. This shows that entrepreneurial attitudes are not fully recognized as an educational aim in general education, and for the purposes of moving from a behaviourist to a constructivist educational approach, rethinking and reformulating the learning outcomes in the NC is necessary.

The critical aspects are: first, NC formats may differ between countries, and hence, the suggested analysis may suffer from limited replicability; second, the most critical aspect is that the present work analyses only the learning outcomes of the written NC, which is the basis for real action in the classroom.

The contribution of the current study may be summed up in three main issues: first, methodology for evaluating the extent to which the NC supports the development of enterprising behaviour; second, the need to rethink and reformulate the learning outcomes in the NC (e.g. for natural sciences); and third, evidence of the conflict between the expectations of society and the aims of education. The research results are providing objective feedback to educational experts, policymakers and practitioners to help schools innovate and support the education of enterprising people in general education.

The research is an initiative supported by society and directed to support the learning of entrepreneurial behaviour of pupils at the schools of general education and use of constructivist learning approach.

The current study is contributing to the methodology of analysing the written national curricula at the general education level for identification the evidence and frequency of the indicators of enterprising behaviour in different parts of curriculum. The methodology elaborated and the results of this study may be considered applicable for the analysis of NC in other countries. In the future, the NC in connection with real teaching practice should be studied, focusing on finding new solutions to support the education of enterprising people in schools.

This chapter aimed to find out which factors affected three Estonian case firms’ serial nonlinear internationalization before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. It also studied how these firms responded to the pandemic and what they learned from their previous business experience. It contributed to the literature on serial nonlinear internationalization and to studies on the (potential) impacts of Covid-19 on firms’ local and international activities by showing that these case firms exited and re-entered foreign markets and experienced considerable export fluctuations before 2020, during and after it. Thus, serial nonlinear internationalization should be perceived as something normal, and it can be expected to occur both during stable and unstable times: it does not only characterize economic crises, and it should not be seen as a failure sign. The pandemic affected the case firms’ internationalization considerably – for instance, via demand fluctuations and travel restrictions – but it also created some additional business opportunities: for example, by creating demand for some additional products and by increasing some customer groups’ interest for some existing products. These firms’ (international) business experience acquired before Covid-19 was also useful during the pandemic as they continued with some previous expansion activities. On the other hand, they also tried something new. As a result, all firms’ total turnover increased in 2020, and it might also increase in 2021, despite some problems in the first quarter.

Purpose — The aim of this chapter is to explore the relative bounds between the domains of dishonesty and honesty, focusing on the antecedences and consequences of these phenomena.Design/methodology/approach — This conceptual paper discusses the literature on the nature of (dis)honesty in management based on the chapters published in this book but also other management literature.Findings — (Dis)honesty is a complex concept, especially in international management. The chapter brings out two main features of dishonesty. First, dishonest behavior occurs always in result of moral path dependency, and second, both honest and dishonest behaviors seem to be contagious — belonging to our social surrounding, we inevitably mirror others.Originality/value — The complexity of (dis)honesty in management (encompassing its nature, impact factors and consequences) has received relatively little research attention.