TITLE:
Re-Internationalization v/s Initial Internationalization: Comparison of Modes of Operations
AUTHORS:
Salman Ali
KEYWORDS:
Re-Internationalization, India, Modes of Operations, Uppsala Model of Internationalization
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.9 No.1,
February
15,
2019
ABSTRACT: Re-internationalization is defined as firms’
re-entry into international operations after they have abandoned all their previous internationalization efforts. In this paper, we
report findings from a survey administered among senior-level managers of
re-internationalized Indian firms where we studied the differences in firms’ choices in modes of operations during
re-internationalization phase as compared to initial
internationalization phase. The results from the survey indicated that firms
tended to go for high involvement modes of operations during
re-internationalization as compared to the relatively low involvement modes of
operations undertaken during initial internationalization. This trend of going
for higher involvement modes of operations was more
visible in firms that had a presence in a relatively higher number of countries
during the re-internationalization stage. This incremental nature of
internationalization, i.e. going from
initial low involvement modes of operations toward high involvement modes of
operations as firms gained experience in both time and space
from their initial through re-internationalization attempts, found support for the Uppsala model of internationalization. Being among the
first studies on the topic, we expect this study to serve as a foundation for
researchers to explore deeper related queries. This study also has meaningful
practical and policy implications.