Born global firms and accidental internationalists: Has Hennart (2014) opened a can of worms?

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to respond to Hennart’s (2014) challenge to the existing born global literature. In his challenge, Hennart proposes a simpler explanation of why some firms internationalize earlier and more aggressively than others. However, such a parsimonious model of born global firms raises the awkward question of whether born global firms are indeed any different from firms that internationalize more gradually. Design/methodology/approach: Using two extensive surveys of Australian exporters, this paper first explores the degree to which a set of six “facilitating factors” that Hennart puts forward are different across born global and non-born global firms. Next, it ..