We conceptualize a learning-based model of international new ventures (INVs)' post-entry internationalization speed focusing upon two measures: country scope speed and international commitment speed. We contribute to a deeper understanding of the pace of international expansion of the new venture once it has become an INV by articulating the role of (1) the speed of learning, influenced by social capital and absorptive capacity, and (2) the content of learning represented by knowledge accumulation. We also offer a more refined perspective on organizational learning, which indicates that different stages in the process of exploitative learning require different forms of social capital.

Despite the widespread use of strategy workshops in organizations, few empirical studies examine this phenomenon. The limited research that exists also lacks a theoretical basis for explaining why some workshops achieve their espoused purpose while others do not. We offer a theoretical model of strategy workshop dynamics and outcomes by drawing on theories of ritual and ritualization. Our central argument is that variations in characteristics of ritualization such as the degree of removal, the use of liturgy and the role of specialists influence behavioural dynamics within workshops and thereby the extent to which their purpose is achieved. This perspective extends research on the episodic nature of strategy development and contributes to a theoretically informed view of strategy practices.

This paper explores the origin, evolution, and appropriation of social capital by new ventures seeking international growth. Using longitudinal case studies in the software industry, we model the dynamic influence of social capital on new venture internationalization. We theorize that new ventures of founders from a globally-connected environment, such as with return migration or MNC experience, have higher stocks of initial social capital than others. We provide a nuanced analysis of the dynamic processes involved in the evolution of social capital, and highlight the mechanisms of decay and replenishment over time. Network learning plays a critical role in new ventures' ability to realize the potential contribution of social capital to international growth. Copyright (c) 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation (c) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies.

The authors aim to advance extant understanding of the dynamics of firms operating abroad by considering the effects of innovation (research-and-development intensity, product and process innovations) on exports (breadth and depth), and vice versa. The study analyzes a panel data set of 696 Spanish manufacturing firms during 1994–2005 using Tobit and logit regressions and the Granger test of causality to offer a more complete picture of this complex relationship. They find broad support for the notion that innovation and exports have a reciprocal causal relationship, although the findings are partly nuanced by positive but nonsignificant associations between product innovation and exports and between export depth and process innovation. Furthermore, both export and innovation processes Granger-cause each other, demonstrating that there is a double causal relationship.

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