Internationalization of young technology firms: A complementary perspective on antecedents of foreign market familiarity

Foreign market familiarity is a central construct, which both traditional Process Theories of Internationalization (PTI) and International New Venture Theory (INVT) emphasize. The present study combines PTI and INVT reasoning and develops an entrepreneurial process view to study pre- and post-entry antecedents of technology firms' foreign market familiarity. Combining PTI and INVT reasoning, we theoretically examine the role of prior foreign market analysis, interaction with foreign market players, and exposure to foreign market particularities as antecedents of foreign market familiarity. We test hypotheses on a dataset of n=248 internationally acting German technology firms. The results show that technology firms internationalize in a proactive manner as suggested by INVT scholars, but in a systematic way as suggested by PTI scholars. Hence, the present study leads to a further convergence of the two domains of IB and IE. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.