The importance of industry context for new venture internationalisation: A case study from the life sciences

During internationalisation, international new ventures in the life sciences industry face distinct challenges. For example, high product development costs push companies into early internationalisation to increase sales turnover and recover investments. At the same time, financial and managerial resource limitations and the demand to adjust to local regulations render internationalisation difficult. To date, relatively little is known about how different industry contexts influence new venture internationalisation processes. This paper presents an in-depth case study of the internationalisation process of a Swedish new venture from the life sciences industry to fill this gap. The findings outline factors in the industry context that affect the internationalisation process, with specific emphasis on entrepreneurs and their networks, leading to several propositions and a model of life sciences new venture internationalisation. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013