New venture internationalization from an emergent market: Unexpected findings from Russia

Journal of East-West Business. 2015. Vol. 21. No. 14. P. 1–35.

Michailova I., Shirokova G., Laine I.

This article offers new insights on determinants of degree and scope of new venture internationalization from emerging markets. We set our study by development of a theoretical framework and hypothesis integrating entrepreneur-, firm-, industry-, and institutional factors to be tested in the Russian empirical context. The results indicate that institutional factors have the strongest relationship with the degree and scope of internationalization in Russian NVs. However, contrary to our expectations and existing literature, entrepreneur-, firm-, and industry-related factors are not associated with new venture internationalization. These unexpected findings have motivated us to implement the second round of empirical research using qualitative approach. As an outcome, we were able to explain the underlying forces behind the inconsistencies in the survey results and to develop four puzzles that provide a foundation for the theoretical extension of new venture internationalization from emerging markets.

Keywords: Russia, institutions, internationalization, emerging markets, New venture