Accidental tourists? A cognitive exploration of serendipitous internationalisation

Abstract

A substantial body of work views initial foreign market entries (FMEs) as intentional and deliberately planned by proactive decision-makers. However, research suggests that FMEs may also occur serendipitously. We take an international opportunity recognition (IOR) perspective and focus on the cognitive underpinnings of serendipitous internationalisation processes associated with six ventures. We highlight differences in the causal logics of decision-makers and cognitive attributes that, in the process of updating causal logics, create oscillations between serendipitous and subsequent planned FMEs. We also explain when and why an effectuation logic is more likely to be employed. We extend research on IOR by elaborating a dynamic interaction between planned and unplanned cognition that provides new insights into how cognitive processes facilitate opportunity recognition.

Determining factors of international opportunity recognition: A conceptual approach

“…Other studies have also highlighted the importance of the international experience acquired by expatriates after their return from their international assignments (Firth et al, 2014) which could help them identify IOs more easily. Going even further, according to some researchers previous international experience has a positive effect on the IOR process (Chandra et al, 2009;Kiss et al, 2019;Kraus et al, 2017;Lorenz et al, 2018). Tuomisalo (2019) by a qualitative and interpretative analysis, supports the statement that prior experience plays a key role in the opportunity recognition process.…”

“…To develop such knowledge and experience they may use a variety of sources, such as travel abroad, foreign language skills, life and work experience, education and business experience abroad, international social links, assistance to international fairs, conducting export market research or by using foreign tourists as an external-market information source (cf. Berbel-Pineda et al, 2018;Chandra et al, 2009;Chetty et al, 2018;George et al, 2016;Hajizadeh & Zali, 2016;Kiss et al, 2019;Kraus et al, 2017;Terán-Yépez et al, 2020b;Zahra et al, 2005). The process of IOR, however, is also influenced by other cognitive aspects such as entrepreneurial creativity, international entrepreneurial alertness and entrepreneurial passion.…”

“…As such, instead of focusing on characteristics at the company level, it is first necessary to identify the entrepreneur as the unit of analysis (Chandra et al, 2012). Thus, the study of the cognitive perspective within the identification of opportunities in IE has been carried out in order to interpret the entrepreneur's mentality, through the impact of the choice of opportunities and the creation of value in international markets (Kiss et al, 2019). Zahra et al (2005), for example, highlights the value of understanding the minds of entrepreneurs, which can guide and shape internationalization decisions.…”

“…Several researchers (Chandra et al, 2009;Kraus et al, 2017;Tabares et al, 2020;Zahra et al, 2005) argue that prior international knowledge can be acquired through: travel abroad, mastery of a foreign language, life and work experience, education abroad, previous work/commercial experience abroad, international social links, and that the possession of the entrepreneur's prior international knowledge has a positive influence on the recognition of international opportunities. In addition, Galdino et al (2019) and Kiss et al (2019) establish that market and internationalization knowledge help to discover IOs and Lorenz et al (2018) clarify that knowledge acquired in the domestic market may also help when looking for IOs. Thus, recent studies suggest that research on prior knowledge is an important avenue for future research in order to understand IOR (Chetty et al, 2018;Tuomisalo, 2019).…”

Where do international opportunities come from and where does literature go?

“…; Andersson e Evers, 2015; Urban e Sefalafala, 2015; Miocevic e Morgan, 2018), e de adaptação(Angeli e Grimaldi, 2010;Muñoz-Bullón et al, 2015); a orientação empreendedora internacional(Vandor e Franke, 2016); a percepção do empreendedor(Muzychenko e Liesch, 2015;Pinho et al, 2018); as competências linguísticas(Hurmerinta et al, 2015), e culturais(Muzychenko, 2008;Vinogradov e Jørgensen, 2017; Nkongolo-Bakenda e Chrysostome, 2020); e a capacidade cognitiva(Butler et al, 2010; Sahai e Frese, 2019;Kiss et al, 2020).Um grupo de autores se dedicou também a compreender como as características da organização influenciam os processos de descobertas das oportunidades internacionais, analisando os seguintes aspectos: a cultura organizacional(Dimitratos et al, 2016;Nordman e Tolstoy, 2016; Kumar e Sharma, 2018); os recursos e capacidades(Kumar e Sharma, 2018;Di Gregorio et al, 2008); a tecnologia (Aspelund e Moen, 2003; Park e Yoon, 2017); a gestão de recursos humanos internacionalmente(Clark e Lengnick-Hall, 2012); e as características de empresas familiares(Ratten e Tajeddini, 2017).…”