A Strategic Approach to Internationalization: A Traditional versus a “Born-Global” Approach

This article is based on a study of 16 in-depth case histories of New Zealand firms. It uses both the traditional and the “born-global” approaches as a framework to study the internationalization processes of the firms. The authors use the histories to conduct a systematic analysis of the extent to which firms that might be categorized as following a traditional or born-global internationalization path differ in the strategies they have used and in their prior motivations and capabilities. The main findings are that many attributes of the born-global model also characterize firms that began their internationalization along traditional lines but were radically transformed in the process of achieving global…