The aim of this study is to investigate how innovations by born global firms influence their long-term international growth. In the early stages, an entrepreneur with a global mindset, who drives product and market innovations-such as developing a unique product and engaging with multiple customers and markets in an innovative, resource-efficient way-plays a key role in driving initial international expansion. This is achieved by rapidly entering multiple markets and leveraging economies of scope. In later stages, management decisions to invest in process innovation-creating an agile organization that operates independently of direct management oversight, focusing on strategic markets, investing in branding and digital marketing, and insourcing strategic activities to enhance control and economies of scale-contribute to sustained international growth. This study supports and extends theories that suggest organizations can be consciously developed and orchestrated through the intentional choices and actions of entrepreneurs. © 2024 The Author.

The aim of this paper is to explore how innovations by born global firms impact their long-term international growth. Specifically, it examines how various types of innovation influence the international expansion of born globals, with a particular focus on mature firms. Three types of innovation are identified: product innovation, process innovation, and market innovation. The paper discusses the relationship between these forms of innovation and the international growth of born global firms. Additionally, it provides recommendations for future empirical research on the topic.

This article aims to investigate how an entrepreneur’s imprinting history influences the creation and international development of new firms. Using a qualitative research design, we investigate the life stories of three entrepreneurs and the international development of their firms. The study shows how imprinting episodes influence the entrepreneur’s mindset, start-up motivation and the subsequent international trajectories of their firms. These episodes can occur in childhood, high school, college or in earlier work experience. We find that different international trajectories emerged depending on the imprinting history of the founding entrepreneurs. In contrast to prior research, we show that entrepreneurs can develop a global mindset without international experience and that such mindsets, along with entrepreneurial passion, can be instrumental in supporting a proactive international strategy. Drawing on imprinting theory, we challenge traditional ways of investigating firm internationalisation by focusing on the life stories of entrepreneurs. © The Author(s) 2025

Research suggests that accelerated internationalization is accidental and that a firm-specific business model (BM) determines which firms become accelerated internationalizers and which become gradual internationalizers. However, in analysing entrepreneurs adopting different internationalization types (accelerated and gradual) from Finland, New Zealand and Sweden, we find a complex interplay between entrepreneurs’ mindsets and emerging BM practices with respect to their internationalizing firms. These practices enable small international firms to eliminate the time and cost penalties associated with the triple liabilities of accelerated internationalization (i.e., newness, outsidership and smallness). This study contributes to the literature by reconciling the alternative explanations offered in previous research and reveals how entrepreneurs’ global and regional mindsets affect their BM practices, leading to different international trajectories. It further contributes by showing that the entrepreneur’s role may be more important than that of the BM. © The Author(s) 2025.

This study examines how a firm rebrand acquired brands, which brand dimensions matter most for customers and employees, and how companies in a rebranding situation can transfer the brand equity from the original brand to the brand that is absorbing it. Using a case study of a multinational business-to-business life sciences company undergoing global rebranding process, we find that for customers and employees on a strategic level, support or resistance is primarily functional, and the critical brand knowledge dimension is awareness. At operational level, individuals value brand’s symbolic value, and the brand knowledge dimension critical for success is image. In a rebranding process, B2B brand managers should focus on brand image in the minds of employees and users who work closely with the product, and focus on brand awareness with strategic buyers. 

Purpose: This study aims to explore challenges and opportunities in the digitalization of the business-to-business (B2B) customer journey in different buying situations. It also investigates where in the customer journey digital marketing is most efficient. Design/methodology/approach: This research adopts a single case study approach to examine a B2B company that implemented digitalization in its customer journey in different buying situations. Data were collected through semistructured interviews, complemented by internal documents and information from the company’s website and social media, to identify reasons for and against the decision to digitalize the B2B customer journey. Findings: Digitalization can offer firms a cost-effective and value-creating way to interact with customers in a B2B context. The B2B buying situation, however, plays a significant role in decisions on how to implement digitalization. Moreover, in the prepurchase phase, digital marketing is more effective in building awareness; in the purchase phase, personal selling is more effective in addressing customers’ needs. Research limitations/implications: The use of a single case study cannot produce results directly generalizable to other contexts. However, the findings are applicable to the digitalization of B2B customer journeys in similar industrial contexts. Practical implications: To successfully implement digitalization in the customer journey, B2B firms should choose digital tools according to different buying situations and phases in the customer journey, segment buyers by their needs rather than individual characteristics and integrate the sales and marketing functions. Originality/value: This study contradicts prior research that claims that digital marketing can be used in a similar way in both B2B and business-to-consumer contexts. It further shows that the relevant demarcation is not between personal sales and digitalization but between automated digital marketing and individualized personal sales, regardless of medium. © 2024, Svante Andersson, Ulf Aagerup, Lisa Svensson and Sanna Eriksson.

Purpose: This study examines the challenges that multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the life sciences industry face during international product launches. The focus is on understanding the barriers MNEs encounter in various national contexts and aims to explore how institutional environments shape the product launch process and the strategies MNEs use to gain acceptance across different markets.

Design/methodology/approach: A case study approach is used, with 20 interviews with key employees from multiple sites and countries within one MNE involved in launching new products. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and supplemented by internal documents.

Findings: The study develops a framework that summarizes key factors influencing the launch process, including pricing, dynamic capabilities, brand awareness, and regulatory compliance. A typology is created to categorize markets into four distinct quadrants based on brand awareness and price sensitivity levels

Originality: This research contributes to the literature by integrating theories of legitimation and institutional influence with the process of new product launches. It offers a framework for understanding the dynamic factors at play and proposes a typology that focus on the complexities of launching products across different market contexts, particularly in the heavily regulated life sciences sector.

Purpose: This study describes how a multinational enterprise (MNE) gains acceptance after rebranding acquired brands from different countries among its internal and external stakeholders and identifies factors that influence this process.

Design/methodology/approach: The study employed a single case-study approach, including 18 semi-structured in-depth interviews with employees of a firm involved in the rebranding process in six countries. The countries are Sweden, Germany, the United States, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.

Findings: The findings reveal how the MNE integrated brands it acquired in different international markets into one overarching corporate brand. The study shows that in emerging countries, external legitimation (external implementation process, country profiles and customer buy-in) constitutes the most significant challenge. By contrast, in developed countries, internal legitimation (employee buy-in and internal implementation process) is more challenging.

Research limitations/implications: The study contributes to and extends the rebranding literature by using a legitimation lens to analyze the rebranding process. This lens shows how internal and external stakeholders are both crucial to successful rebranding. The study provides a comprehensive perspective of the process, identifies challenging factors and differentiates between their importance in emerging and developed countries.

Originality/value: To address the dearth of research on how firms legitimize a new brand in different national contexts, the study compares the rebranding process in multiple countries and discusses the factors influencing the rebranding process.

This research had the objective to analyze the influence of network transitions within the life cycle stages of Born Globals (BGs). By developing a framework that consisted of a pre-inception phase, start-up phase, and growth phase, the study proposed to identify which networks were used and which knowledge was acquired within the development of the BGs, in order to analyze the network transitions that influenced its international expansion. By conducting in-depth interviews, the data was collected for the analysis of a comparative case study. Our empirical findings indicate that in the pre-inception phase, technological knowledge from institutional and business networks was pivotal to acquiring internal development making it possible for the companies to progress to the inception phase. Furthermore, international marketing knowledge acquired through business networks contributed to the transition from the inception phase to the growth phase as well as its internationalization. The results imply that high-tech entrepreneurs should consider developing business and institutional networks as an efficient mean for firm development and rapid internationalization. © 2024 Wiley Periodicals LLC.