Alex Rialp Criado

Autonomous University of Barcelona | UAB · Departamento de Empresa

Se propone una nueva taxonomía, tras la revisión de diferentes enfoques de formación de estrategias empresariales, para el fenómeno de las pequeñas empresas de rápida internacionalización o born globals, con el objetivo de ampliar su conocimiento. El proceso de formación de estrategias para la internacionalización temprana exitosa tenderá a adoptar...

Despite various advances in international business and entrepreneurship literatures and increasing interest in speed of internationalization mainly among international entrepreneurship scholars, the relationship between the use of social media and the internationalization speed of the firm remains poorly investigated. This article presents the refl...

A literature review article provides a comprehensive overview of literature related to a theme/theory/method and synthesizes prior studies to strengthen the foundation of knowledge. In the growing International Business (IB) research field, systematic literature reviews have great value, yet there are not many reviews published describing how resea...

This study investigates the relationship between international entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) and innovation performance. It analyzes IEO as a key antecedent of innovation performance by considering the underlying effects of open innovation and social media usage. We test the hypothesized relationships by performing partial least squares analysi...

We focus on the importance of digital social media for a European B2B firm entering the Chinese market. Our case company has achieved rapid international growth, including within the Chinese market. We find that social media has been an exceedingly important factor in this. The company, however, did not identify China’s digital firewall, which bloc...

Despite various advances in international business and entrepreneurship literatures and increasing interest in speed of internationalization mainly among international entrepreneurship scholars, the relationship between the use of social media and the internationalization speed of the firm remains poorly investigated. This article presents the refl...

This article offers insights into research on the strategic orientations of international new ventures (INVs) and born global firms (BGs) with the aim of presenting a conceptual research framework to guide future research on this topic. This article finds that while most extant research has focused on the relationships of various types of strategic...

Purpose This paper aims to elaborate on the crucial effects that a seemingly detrimental policy change in Spain has had on the international entrepreneurial activities of domestic renewable energy (RE) firms. Design/methodology/approach Primary data were collected from nine RE companies in Spain and then triangulated with secondary data and interv...

The International Business Review (IBR) is a leading international academic journal in the field of International Business (IB). Such leadership is reflected in the large number of publications that grow year after year and particularly in the large number of citations received from other journals of high academic prestige. The aim of this study is...

In this paper, we explored the relationship between the sustainable andinternational entrepreneur to define the phenomenon of Binternational ecopreneur.^This notion is applied in an empirical case study research about six Spanish eco-entrepreneurial new ventures competing in the renewable energy industry and showingtheir early endeavors to enter in...

This study examines using a complex systems approach, the reciprocal relationships between innovation, internationalization, and organizational learning in small businesses. After analyzing 54 companies and purposefully selecting 12 particularly information‐rich cases, we find that these three key activities are reciprocally linked to each other, f...

This study investigates the relationship between selected managers’ attitudinal and cognitive aspects, proxied through observable demographic variables, and small and medium-sized enterprises’ export and economic performance. We argue that a manager’s positive attitude, vision, and commitment towards international business reflected in his/her leve...

Este documento analiza los determinantes de la capacidad de innovación y la relación entre ésta y la internacionalización, utilizando la técnica multivariante de regresión lineal. Los resultados sugieren que hay cuatro variables organizacionales (determinantes), principalmente que influyen positivamente en la capacidad de innovación de una PYME y q...

RESUMEN Este documento analiza los determinantes de la capacidad de innovación y la relación entre ésta y la internacionalización, utilizando la técnica multivariante de regresión lineal. Los resultados sugieren que hay cuatro variables organizacionales (determinantes), principalmente que influyen positivamente en la capacidad de innovación de una...

People increasingly interact with services enabled by digital platforms. This has been a consequence of the digitalization of artifacts, which has transmuted traditional businesses into digital forms. With the increasing digitalization and modularization of services, digital platforms have given many digital service providers possibilities to scale...

The growth of social media presents international businesses and marketers with unprecedented risks and challenges. Marketers are becoming aware of the threat of losing control over their message and are also beginning to realize the potential of social media as a marketing tool. Based on export managers’ beliefs about social media use outcomes, as...

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between managerial beliefs regarding social media and the subsequent adoption of these tools by exporting companies, and the moderating effect of export dependence measured by export intensity in those relationships. To accomplish this objective we use data from a Web-based survey distrib...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the internationalisation of small firms from a Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) country with an emerging market economy, while accounting for the constantly changing institutional framework as well as resource (un)availability which may influence their involvement in foreign market operations. I...

The paper emphasizes the importance of social networks in the gestation of international new ventures, particularly through their impact on the perceptions of nascent entrepreneurs. Their contribution consists not only in providing new information to assist new venture founders in identifying international opportunities but, and perhaps more import...

Globalization pushes companies to operate abroad and a successful innovative posture could be a key to access the export market in a global economy. In turn, innovativeness reflects the tendency to new-idea generation, novelty, and creative processes, which may be supported by experiences and knowledge acquired in international markets. Based on th...

This paper presents the results of a survey of 121 manufacturing SMEs in Spain. The research question explores the effectiveness of firm networks on entrepreneurial orientation development and business growth. Structural Equation Modeling confirmed the importance of network usage on entrepreneurial orientation and pointed out both, direct and indir...

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of orientation towards international markets (OIM) for born global firms (BG) and present a measurement scale of OIM specifically designed for these firms. We propose a scale of OIM based on the literature review and a qualitative study. This proposal is then tested by means of a quantitative rese...

This paper aims to examine the extent to which social media competence (SMC) determines exporting companies' actual adoption of social media applications, which eventually might impact these firms' performance. Quantitative study where data were collected through a web-based survey addressed to Spanish exporters. SEM is employed for testing the hyp...

: Este artículo presenta los resultados de una investigación realizada con 121 pequeñas y medianas empresas (pymes) manufactureras en España. El objetivo principal de este estudio es explorar el impacto del uso de las redes sobre el desarrollo de la orientación emprendedora y del crecimiento de la empresa. Considerando la posibilidad de controlar p...

In this paper, a selection of contemporary approaches to business internationalization, from the mode of entry perspective, are reviewed and systematically compared among themselves: transaction cost-based frameworks, resource-based view (or organizational capability perspective), and the attitudinal approach. It is concluded from our analysis that...

In the last decades, the immigrants’ rate has grown exponentially in Spain. The labor force of immigrant people is leveraged by developed countries. Immigrants participate in the labor market in different ways for example such as employees, self-employees and/or as entrepreneurs. The most important factors that influence the immigrant's decision to...

Perceiving entrepreneurial opportunities plays a role in entrepreneurship. The current study analyzes how immigrants’ general and specific human capital influence their likelihood of perceiving entrepreneurial opportunities. The analysis pivots around the comparison of immigrants with natives. Data from the Spanish Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (...

As internationalization of firms, mostly new and young ones, becomes an increasingly widespread phenomenon, international entrepreneurship (IE) has been recognized as a major force in the global economy. As opposed to entrepreneurship, which is contextually bound, IE occurs simultaneously in at least two contexts – local and international – which m...

Immigrant entrepreneurship is an important socio-economic phenomenon today. Many studies have been developed in academic arenas of different disciplines. This paper aims to present a systematic review of academic literature related to immigrant entrepreneurship. In doing so, two questions are addressed: what has been done in international immigrant...

This study investigates the effect of the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on SME financial performance. The essay also proposes a contingency model to explore the moderating effects of environmental hostility on the relationship between EO and profitability. The study was conducted using a sample of 121 manufacturing SMEs in Spain. Results confirm...

A quick replacement of the Information and Communication Technology Systems (ICT) of the target company with the bidder's ICT is expected in absorptions, as the synergies stemming from these deals lie in the rapid integration of the acquired firm within the organizational structure of the bidder. However, the evidence from the literature shows that...

The authors aim to advance extant understanding of the dynamics of firms operating abroad by considering the effects of innovation (research-and-development intensity, product and process innovations) on exports (breadth and depth), and vice versa. The study analyzes a panel data set of 696 Spanish manufacturing firms during 1994—2005 using Tobit a...

This paper contributes to SME internationalization theory by offering region-specific propositions on early internationalization of Central and Eastern European (CEE) firms. We suggest that special treatment of international new ventures from CEE transition economies is justified due to constraints faced by their founders, particularly not only li...

In the vast literature of immigrant entrepreneurship, there are some approaches trying to explain this phenomenon. Nonetheless, little attention is paid to the discovery process of entrepreneurial opportunities among immigrants, which represents an important milestone in the process. In this sense, this study contributes to the growing body of know...

Perceiving entrepreneurial opportunities plays a role in entrepreneurship. The current study analyzes how immigrants level of general and specific human capital influence their likelihood of perceiving entrepreneurial opportunities in Spain. The analysis pivots around the comparison of immigrants with natives. However, implicitly natives with nativ...

Globalization pushes companies to operate abroad and a successful innovative posture could be a key to access the export market in a global economy. In turn, innovativeness reflects the tendency to new-idea generation, novelty, and creative processes, which may be explained by experiences and knowledge acquired in international markets. Based on th...

This study contributes to expand the knowledge available on immigrant entrepreneurship. Consistent with the notion of entrepreneurship as a process, a qualitative exploration of information and experiences acquired by immigrants in the catering sector was performed to ascertain their role in discovering entrepreneurial opportunities. Our sample con...

What has been done in international immigrant entrepreneurship? And what are the trends that marked this phenomenon in research arenas? To address these questions, 40 articles published in top-tier journals are examined based on their: (a) objectives, (b) theoretical frameworks and (c) methodologies. Content analysis is used for reviewing the artic...

This paper investigates whether the degree of standardisation/adaptation of the overall international marketing strategy influences the export performance in SMEs, taking into account the moderating effect of internal and external variables. Drawing on a contingency approach of international marketing strategy standardisation/adaptation, a conceptu...

The aim of the paper is to provide a comprehensive picture of the export performance determinants of Spanish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by jointly studying the influence of internal (managerial and organisational) and external (environmental) antecedents as well as responding to recent calls for research in the international business...

This paper examines for the first time the consequences of the marketing capabilities of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the early phase of an economic transition as well as the role of government enterprise optimization programs in such environments. A survey of 254 Cuban SOEs found that marketing capabilities (either market orientation or a com...

This study investigates the effect of the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on SME financial performance. The essay also proposes a contingency model to explore the moderating effects of environmental hostility on the relationship between EO and profitability. The study was conducted using a sample of 121 manufacturing SMEs in Spain. Results confirm...

The decision-maker's role in international activity is crucial, particularly in the case of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, the extant literature on internationalization is characterized by a lack of consensus among scholars as to what constitutes the managerial factor in determining exporting. Therefore, this study focuses on...

This paper attempts to offer a deeper conceptual understanding of the early and rapid internationalization process of born-global firms by applying the lens of the strategy-making process. In other words, it offers an integrated strategic management perspective to explain the so-called born-global phenomenon. We argue that born-global firms’ strate...

In the vast literature of immigrant entrepreneurship, there are some approaches trying to explain this phenomenon. Therefore, little attention has been paid to the discovery process of entrepreneurial opportunities among immigrants; which represent an important milestone in the process of entrepreneurship. In this sense, this study contributes to t...

This paper is aimed at contributing to increase the current level of knowledge on the phenomenon of the born global firm identifying the key driving forces and the most characterizing features of this type of new/young international ventures. Besides, the main theoretical frameworks from which to conduct further empirical research about these firms...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the generation and transfer of knowledge in information technology‐related small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach Based on a survey of 105 employees from 30 organizations in Barcelona, Spain, the authors use a structural equation approach to validate the conceptual model. F...

Using data of young firms from Latin America and Mediterranean Europe, we analyse the influence of human and relational capital on the likelihood of creating an early internationalising firm (EIF). Our results indicate that in the context of Latin American countries entrepreneurs' characteristics as well as their networks of relationships may influ...

Este artículo analiza el papel de las tecnologías de la información y comunicación (TIC) en los procesos de integración en las adquisiciones de compañías del mismo sector que la adquirente (horizontales). De acuerdo con los planteamientos tradicionales, una rápida fusión de las plataformas TIC de la empresa adquirente y adquirida sería, en principi...

This paper analyzes the role of Information Technology (IT) in the Integration processes in horizontal mergers and acquisitions. According to conventional wisdom, a rapid integration of IT systems would facilitate the integration process of the acquired and acquired companies. However, the results of our case studies show that a rapid unification o...

According to a recent and interesting revision of advances in international marketing theory and practice, the international marketing literature has grown exponentially in recent years in order to offer sufficient support to corporate and public policy makers confronting today's hostile global business conditions (Katsikeas, 2003a). In fact, some...

In this paper, we develop a resource-based model for analyzing the effect of several firm resources, more concretely those of an intangible character, on the born global nature of an exporting firm. We test then whether several intangible resources may have influenced the fact that a firm started its export activity almost from inception, and also...

A pesar de que una cierta mayoría de empresas aún suelen internacionalizarse siguiendo un patrón llamado gradualista, otras más dinámicas, emprendedoras y de reciente creación parecen hacerlo prácticamente desde el momento de su constitución, o muy poco tiempo después. La creciente relevancia de este tipo de nuevas empresas exportadoras más innovad...

In spite of the recent efforts made by the Spanish governmental institutions to promote hem, there are just a few export consortia really successful in Spain as compared to those being projected that never reach their formal constitution or simply fail to survive. Also, there are very few national studies in this specific area. This research is foc...

With a view to increasing knowledge within the emergent field of international entrepreneurship, we examine 38 studies from the last decade that deal with international new ventures, global start-ups and born-global firms. The methodology used for this synthetic review allow us to analyze a large number of recent, purposefully chosen studies that a...

This qualitative, case-based research investigates the most relevant traits shown by several new, export-involved born-global firms and their entrepreneurs-managers versus other more traditional and also recently-established exporting SMEs in a specific geographic region inside Spain. More concretely, we aim to shed light on the type of factors and...

Recibido en agosto de 2005; aceptado en noviembre de 2005 Resumen: Pese a los recientes esfuerzos realizados para dinamizarlos desde los organismos públicos competentes españoles, aún son relativamente pocos los consorcios de exportación realmente exitosos en España frente a los que ni llegan a constituirse o apenas sobreviven un tiempo. Por otra p...

In this chapter, a resource-based model has been developed for analyzing the effect of several firm resources, more concretely those of an intangible character, on the development of both export capability and more appropriate export-marketing strategies in order to improve export performance. Then, this model has been empirically tested among a re...

The internalizing of export operations inside the firm is examined with data from 2,264 Spanish exporters. An interpretive framework for understanding the channel integration decision is designed and tested. Results confirm that a higher proportion of firms decide to externalize their export marketing activities in the marketplace versus keeping th...

In this paper, 27 studies from the last decade which deal more or less explicitly with the International New Venture, global start-up or born-global phenomenon are first identified, and then fully examined and critically assessed as a basis for obtaining an adequate view of the state-of-the-art of this increasingly important research avenue in the...

In the latest years, the relationship between technology and export has been studied to explain the influence of the firms efforts in the technological activities and their export performance. With no doubt, most of the studies on this subject tend to approximate the innovation strategy of a Company to its expense in R&D, even if, in reality, the c...

This study attempts to facilitate the future development of a more general theory relative to the nature of small business internationalization and provides a step toward a more holistic understanding of this process. More concretely, its general goal is to draw attention to this potential: the possibility of better examining this process - and dev...

The internalizing decision of export operations inside the firm, with respect to their maintenance in the domain of the market through several mechanisms of external distribution, is examined with data coming from a general sample of 428 Catalan and 1,836 Spanish (non-Catalan) exporters. An interpretive framework for explaining the channel integrat...

This paper contributes with empirical findings to European co-inventorship location and geographical coincidence of co-patenting networks. Based on EPO co-patenting information for the reference period 2000-2004, we analyze the spatial con figuration of 44 technology-specific co-inventorship networks. European co-inventorship (co-patenting) activit...

En este trabajo se identifican los principales enfoques existentes en torno al fenómeno de la internacionalización desde un punto de vista empresarial o micro-organizativo: las teorías de la empresa multinacional/IDE, el denominado «modelo del proceso de internacionalización» (enfoque gradualista) y la reciente literatura sobre los modos de entrada...

The objective of the paper is to determine which managerial, organisational and environmental determinants significantly influence the export performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), involved in export activities. The present research aims to contribute to a better understanding of the export performance, measured both objectively...

In spite of the recent efforts made by the Spanish governmental institutions to promote them, there are just a few export consortia really successful in Spain as compared to those being projected that never reach their formal constitution or simply fail to survive. Also, there are very few national studies in this specific area. This research is fo...

Este trabajo presenta y valida, mediante un estudio cuantitativo y cualitativo, una tipología de usos y posibles ventajas estratégicas asociados a las inversiones en TIC, entendidas como plataformas de crecimiento. Nuestros resultados muestran que las empresas pueden realizar hasta tres usos o aplicaciones estratégicas de las TIC: 1) mejorar la efi...