International Entrepreneurship: The Current Status of the Field and Future Research Agenda

With the globalization of the world economy, interest in international entrepreneurship has increased rapidly over the past decade. One of the most important features of today's global economy is the growing role of young entrepreneurial new ventures. Through the 1990s, researchers' attention has centered on exploring the motivations for, the pattern of, and the pace of internationalization by new ventures (i.e., firms eight years old or younger). Invoking multiple theoretical perspectives, some researchers suggest that new ventures frequently become active players in the global economy soon after the birth of these firms. More recently, however, researchers have focused on examining the entrepreneurial activities of established companies (i.e., firms older than eight years), aiming to uncover the key patterns of innovative activities associated with successful internationalization. By doing so, researchers have sought to explain how international entrepreneurship may lead to superior financial performance among established firms.