The continued internationalisation of an international new venture

This paper aims to explore longitudinally a life sciences international new venture’s (INV’s) development of foreign market knowledge (FMK) and how this knowledge development relates to the firm’s entrepreneurial orientation (EO).

The article adopts a longitudinal case study approach to investigate an INV in the life sciences industry.

The findings show that the EO of an INV changes during its internationalisation. A strong EO, often considered to be synonymous with the early expansion of an INV, is not always able to guide the INV in its later developmental stages. In its continued internationalisation, an INV instead needs firm-specific FMK accumulated from a process of learning by doing. The knowledge development of an INV is a time-consuming process that cannot be rushed by grafting new and experienced employees.

Future research focusing on larger and broader samples of INVs is recommended to validate this study’s results.

Life sciences managers need to develop their own firm-specific FMK by interacting with their foreign business partners.

This study contributes further insights into the FMK development processes and EO of INVs in the life sciences industry during their internationalisation. Further understanding is also provided about how the industry-specific features of an INV in the life sciences industry influence internationalisation over time. The study’s theoretical implications are that international entrepreneurship frameworks and internationalisation process theory need to be integrated to understand the longitudinal development of INVs.