Born global companies as Market- Driven organisations: an empirical analysis

In today’s highly competitive global markets, companies compete in conditions of extreme economic, technological and socio-political instability. In many countries, because of the globalisation of markets, advances in transportation and communications technologies and the convergence of technologies of digital communication, more and more small and medium sized companies are pursuing opportunities in global markets. Globalisation has increased the level of competition, weakening barriers to entry in several markets; technology has accelerated the speed of structural changes in demand, reducing product and sector life cycles. These radical changes can neither be ignored nor avoided. In addition, they confirm that nowadays a global growth is necessary for every company. Especially in rapid changing and unpredictable global environments, where small and medium companies often operate, organisational capabilities contribute most to the expansion and performance in markets. Drawing on the Resource Based View and dynamic capability view, this PhD thesis explores the expansion into global markets of a sample of Italian manufacturing small and medium sized companies. In particular, given the growing importance of intangible assets as sources of competitive advantage, this work examines how some organisational capabilities affect the probability of a company being classified as a born global (that is, a company that has experienced early and rapid expansion into global markets) or as a traditional exporter (that is, a company that has experienced a more slow and gradual expansion into global markets). The logistic regression analysis confirms that entrepreneurial orientation and networking capability are significant determinants of born global. Furthermore, linear regressions analyses confirm firstly that born globals perform much better than their counterparts do and secondly that entrepreneurial orientation affects their performance on global markets. Finally, as an “emerging issue”, based on Market Driven Management Theory, this PhD thesis suggests that born global companies are similar to Market Driven Organisations because of their outside-in perspective, outward orientation towards opportunities, global proactive attitude and networking capability, which permit them to expand and outperform in global markets faster and better than competitors.