The influence of exploration and exploitation on born globals’ speed of internationalization

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate exploration and exploitation as antecedents to speed of internationalization in born global firms. Design/methodology/approach: By using 150 born global firms in China, the authors demonstrate that the influence of exploration and exploitation on born globals’ speed of internationalization. The statistical method in this study is hierarchical regression model. Findings: The results revealed that exploration has a negative effect on the internationalization of born global firms, whereas exploration does not. The interaction between exploration and exploitation has positive influence on born globals’ speed of internationalization. Practical implications: The study helps entrepreneurs and managers to better understand how to achieve international entrepreneurship success and internationalization success. Originality/value: This study makes a theoretical development of internationalization speed, a core aspect of international entrepreneurship theory. First, this study contributes to theories on born globals’ speed of internationalization, which the authors redefined in the current study by using two approaches to measure the speed of internationalization of born global firms. Second, the study used exploration and exploitation as the two designated factors that are supposed to affect the speed of internationalization of born globals which contributes to the theoretical literature of international opportunity.