Reshaping Internationalization Strategy and Control for Global E-Commerce and Digital Transactions: A Hayekian Perspective

Abstract

As the sharing economy has grown rapidly and replaced the traditional businesses, new rules and norms for data and digital trade have emerged divergently in many countries. Such divergence in global e-commerce policies may be a major barrier to the internationalization of the sharing economy business. This paper aims to develop an internationalization theory that addresses how the sharing economy firms can internationalize under the condition of the divergence of global e-commerce policies. Drawing on Hayek’s knowledge economy approach, we build a new internationalization theory for the sharing economy firms that facilitate autonomously self-organized business ecosystems and adapt to the lack of harmonized rules and norms for the sharing economy. We first theorize on the attributes of the digital platform-based transactions for the internationalization of the sharing economy firms and then provide some insights into the current international debates of e-commerce policies. Our theory offers two main insights: (1) the competitive advantages of the sharing economy firms stem mainly from digital platform algorithms to catalyze digital platform-based transactions between autonomous actors; (2) the divergence of global e-commerce policies and different internet regimes in different countries may affect the internationalization of business models based on such digital platform-based transactions.

Digital technologies and knowledge processes: new emerging strategies in international business. A systematic literature review

“…Industrial SMEs in ecosystems (Del Giudice et al , 2019; Kolagar et al , 2021) and in university-industry relations (Corsi et al , 2022) pursue gradual internationalization paths based on knowledge acquisition generation and integration in local networks and its subsequent exploitation in international business. Large digital firms (Aversa et al , 2021; Cha et al , 2023; Rong et al , 2022) follow internationalization strategies based on integrating into local ecosystems, overcoming obstacles related to the lack of a user base, of existing relationships with local complementors and different regulation of online services.…”

“…Among digital companies, sharing economy ones mainly face barriers to their internationalization efforts related to the local regulations of host countries. Cha et al (2023) address the problem of divergence of global e-commerce policies among different countries and its impact on traditional internationalization theory and the Uppsala model. The authors rely on Hayek’s knowledge economy approach to explain how sharing economy firms successfully expand their business internationally without investing in ownership but promoting collective actions of complementary agents in the host country.…”

“…This demonstrates the need to explore a phenomenon that, while not new, is profoundly changing due to the emergence of new technologies and new industries paving the way for new business models and, necessarily, new internationalization processes. This is reflected in a couple of attempts at systematic structuring through conceptual contributions, such as Freeman et al (2010), who integrate the traditional Uppsala model to explain the born-global phenomenon, and Cha et al (2023), who develop a model of internationalization for sharing economy enterprises. In contrast, quantitative studies that could validate and generalize the findings of qualitative surveys and provide the basis for new theoretical developments still need to be included.…”

Networks of internationalizing digital platforms in physical place and digital space

“…Borders in online space are also intangible; however, they certainly exist and can be linked to real‐life individuals and groups. Hence, combining and orchestrating network relations in both physical and digital localities suggests important implications for internationalization strategies, such as reaching customers and partners (Vadana et al, 2021), handling transactions between platform users (Cha et al, 2023), and making international marketing decisions (Katsikeas et al, 2020), amongst others. Overall, our research adds to the existing body of work which acknowledges that location in IB should not be operationalized only at the country level and as geographical place (Beugelsdijk & Mudambi, 2013; Saittakari et al, 2023), and that it should not be associated merely with territorial borders understood as “lines in the sand.” We extend the concepts of location (that is, where a firm's activities occur) and borders by showing their more compound and multifaceted nature; specifically, we demonstrate three “modes” of bordering between physical place and digital space, namely soldering, interosculation, and division.…”

Illuminating the dark corners: a qualitative examination of cryptocurrency’s risk

“…The advent of the digital era has led to a significant transformation in various aspects of life, including the economy, particularly in the realm of digital transactions (Cha et al , 2023; Kala and Chaubey, 2023; Kantar and Bynum, 2021; Mubarak et al , 2020). Among the most notable changes in digital transactions is the emergence of virtual currency, also known as electronic or digital currency.…”