Are growth expectations being met? Implications for the internationalization of micro-sized ventures

Despite the rapid growth of international entrepreneurship research in the last two decades, little attention has been paid to the internationalization of micro-sized ventures. Given the influence of the entrepreneur within these micro-sized ventures, an especially relevant question is how entrepreneurial perceptions impact international growth. Drawing on organizational learning and performance feedback theory, we hypothesize that entrepreneurs who perceive the venture to have either not met or to have exceeded growth expectations will subsequently internationalize more than entrepreneurs who perceive growth expectations to have simply been met. A sample of 226 international, micro-sized ventures from the Kauffman Firm Survey is used to test the hypotheses. The results confirm a U-shaped relationship between entrepreneurial perceptions and internationalization. The relationship is more pronounced among innovative micro-sized ventures than non-innovative ones. This study adds to the international entrepreneurship research stream with an emphasis on the entrepreneur and specifically highlights the role of perceptions.