Gary A. Knight

• PhD
• Chair at Willamette University

We examine the role of learning firm-specific advantages of small and medium size (SME) service firms in their internationalization. We focus on technical services that have received limited scholarly attention. We theorize that innovative born global firms build a set of capabilities in market, internal and relational learning that will provide ne...

The article conducts a meta–analysis on the relationship between internationalization and firm performance in international entrepreneurship. Empirical evidence from 15,648 internationalizing entrepreneurial firms nested in 43 independent samples reveals a positive relationship between degree and scope of internationalization and performance. Knowl...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of entrepreneurial orientation and networking capabilities of born global firms in an emerging market on marketing strategy and foreign market performance. Design/methodology/approach Structural equation modeling was used to analyze data from 1,001 internationalized firms in an emerging...

Additive manufacturing (AM) is an emergent technology that is shifting the nature of production, sourcing, and other value-chain activities. AM has the potential to substantially disrupt the structure and operations of international business. In this paper, we leverage the global factory concept (e.g., Buckley & Ghauri, 2004) to frame our discussio...

In this editorial for the Special Issue on International Entrepreneurship, we inter-relate key concepts about the pursuit of opportunities from the entrepreneurship and international business literatures. In doing so, we consider the assessment of opportunities as an individual-level cognitive activity, the construction of opportunity as a firm-lev...

Purpose The paper aims to research the relationship between terrorism and multinational enterprises, focusing on operational costs, marketing planning, supply chain management, and distribution activities. Terrorism is a growing threat to internationally-active firms, but there has been no empirical research to address the distinctive challenges t...

Kiss, A. N., Fernhaber, S., & McDougall–Covin, P. P. (2018). Slack, Innovation, and Export Intensity: Implications for Small– and Medium–Sized Enterprises. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. Jiang, H., Cannella, A. A., & Jiao, J. (2018). Does Desperation Breed Deceiver? A Behavioral Model of New Venture Opportunism. Entrepreneurship Theory and P...

As economic growth in developed economies has almost peaked, developing economies are becoming to be the source of firm's future growth. Additionally, as SMEs are relevant economic actors in the majority of developed economies where they provide growth and wealth, and also play a relevant role in developing economies where they contribute to allevi...

As developing economies have weak institutional environments, and these are highly distant from SMEs’ home conditions in developed economies, those firms entering into developing economies should acquire new knowledge resources for a successful entry. In this paper, we analyze the type of knowledge required by SMEs to enter a foreign market, the al...

In this paper, we summarize how internationalization research has evolved over time, where it stands today, and how it might evolve going forward. Specifically, we examine internationalization research from earlier times to the present day. We contrast the incremental internationalization characteristic of older multinational enterprises with the e...

Our 2004 Journal of International Business Studies article, “Innovation, Organizational Capabilities, and the Born Global Firm” provided a framework for the phenomenon of early and rapid internationalization among young, entrepreneurial firms. This work can be characterized as an integration of marketing, entrepreneurial, and capability-based think...

Firms around the globe have been exposed to the vicissitudes of terrorism which, more often than not, aims to disrupt the flows of supply and demand. It is therefore important to investigate the effect of terrorism on business and to find possible steps that might help firms better prepare for terrorist incidents. Such research needs to be global,...

Emerging market countries are characterized by weaknesses in institutions, infrastructure, and other public resources to support business. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) typically endure limited private resources. Despite such deficiencies, emerging-market SMEs are participating increasingly in international business. The authors examine...

Organizational learning has been studied as a key factor in firm performance and internationalization. Moving beyond the past emphasis on market learning, we develop a more complete explanation of learning, its relationship to innovation, and their joint effect on early internationalization. We theorize that, driven by the founders’ international v...

To represent the modern world economy, we introduce the worldwide market for market transactions concept to enable us to model the organization of the firm. Outsourcing and offshoring are changing the nature of the firm, presenting internalization/externalization decisions for international managers, and producing unprecedented international reloca...

To represent the modern world economy, we introduce the worldwide market for market transactions concept to enable us to model the organization of the firm. Outsourcing and offshoring are changing the nature of the firm, presenting internalization/externalization decisions for international managers, and producing unprecedented international reloca...

Using a novel modelling approach to represent the firm in the market, we develop a theoretical explanation of externalisation to clarify the phenomena of outsourcing and offshoring of technical and administrative tasks. We employ hypothetical firm illustrations to elaborate the worldwide market for market transactions and increased opportunities fo...

Terrorism threatens international business (IB) through its direct and indirect effects. As governments tighten security at public sites, businesses have become more attractive terrorist targets, with important implications for the operations and performance of multinational firms. While terrorism has been substantially studied in other fields, the...

International trade and investment economies are highly integrated and interdependent and can be exploited by organized, international terrorism. The network of inter dependencies in the international economy means that a terrorist attack has the potential to disrupt the functioning of the network, so the effects can reverberate around the world. G...

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...

The trend of increasing internationalization of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is noteworthy, because such firms typically have far fewer financial and tangible resources than large multinational enterprises. As a result, international business is often more challenging for smaller firms. In this study we investigate the widespread internation...

Outsourcing and offshoring are changing the nature of the firm, and producing unprecedented international relocation of economic activity. We engage with Williamson’s (1996) challenge to organizational scholars to address ‘which transactions go where and why?’ to explain the outsourcing/offshoring phenomenon. We present a novel modelling approach t...

Existing approaches at explaining accelerated internationalization of born global firms are incomplete as they do not capture the learning that is undertaken by these firms and their founders prior to the firm's legal establishment. Building on the extant literature and drawing on the dynamic capabilities view of competitive strategy, this paper pr...

Purpose – This paper offers a conceptualization of the internationalization decision confronted by a firm in an environment of terrorism‐induced risk. Design/methodology/approach – The approach taken is a conceptualization of the internationalization decision framed from theoretical reasoning and informed by the literature. Findings – The model p...

The reweaving and repaving of the modern Silk Road passes through outsourcing and offshoring activities that have a profound impact on both global business psyche and landscape. Firms, in particular, and their global value chain are being shaped and reshaped through a complex concoction of vertical integration and disintegration. The boundary of th...

Four service evaluation models are identified from the literature that are commonly offered to depict the relationships amongst the primary service evaluation constructs of sacrifice, service quality, service value, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions. We comparatively test the models using samples of service consumers in Australia, Hong Kong,...

Terrorism poses both direct and indirect threats to the operations of the firm. It represents a market imperfection that increases transaction costs and creates barriers to the free flow of goods, affecting potential gains that would occur in the presence of unhindered exchange. Terrorism reflects the risk or actual encounter of violent acts, whose...

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...

Woodside [Woodside, A. G. (2004). Firm orientations, innovativeness and business performance: Advancing a systems dynamics view following a comment on Hult, Hurley, and Knight's 2004 study. Industrial Marketing Management, in press.] has crafted a thoughtful paper that makes a number of contributions and raises several important issues regarding fi...

Companies that internationalise at or near their founding, “born globals,” are emerging in great numbers world-wide. Characterised by a specific Gestalt of marketing-related competencies, they are playing an increasing role in international trade. Born globals are investigated using data from case and survey-based studies in Denmark and the USA. Fi...

In this study, we address three research questions: (1) Why are some industrial firms more innovative than others? (2) What effect does innovativeness has on business performance? (3) Does the linkage between innovativeness and business performance depend on the environmental context? Accordingly, we draw on various theoretical perspectives to deve...

We investigate born-global firms as early adopters of internationalization – that is, companies that expand into foreign markets and exhibit international business prowess and superior performance, from or near their founding. Our explication highlights the critical role of innovative culture, as well as knowledge and capabilities, in this unique b...

We investigate born-global firms as early adopters of internationalization – that is, companies that expand into foreign markets and exhibit international business prowess and superior performance, from or near their founding. Our explication highlights the critical role of innovative culture, as well as knowledge and capabilities, in this unique b...

There are countless important concepts in international business research that must be assessed using valid measurement scales. A prerequisite for advancing international business research is standardized constructs and associated measures that are reliable, valid, and dimensionally consistent. Because international business research is a costly un...

Internationalisation occurs when the firm expands its selling, production, or other business activities into international markets. Many enterprises, especially small- and medium-size firms (SMEs), are internationalising today at an unprecedented rate. Managers are strategically using information to achieve degrees of internationalisation previousl...

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...

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have begun to play a critical role in international trade. Statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other sources indicate that SMEs now account for a very substantial proportion of exports from most industrialized nations. But very little is known about the effect of h...

Increasing numbers of small and medium sized firms (SMEs) are becoming active in international business. This phenomenon is being facilitated by numerous trends in the macro-environment of the firm. However, SMEs are typically quite resource-constrained relative to their larger, traditional rivals. Many SMEs fail to bridge the gap between initial e...

With the increasing involvement of industrial firms in foreign markets, there is a need for research on the role of specific orientations and strategies in international success. This need is motivated in part by the special challenges posed in the international environment of business. A key lever in the success of any firm is product quality. Whi...

This article presents a thorough analysis of the research published in the Journal of Business Research (JBR) during the period of 1985–1999. First, each article published in JBR was categorized into a primary content area according to the broad subject areas covered by the journal's editorial review boards. Marketing represents the largest area wi...

Globalization and the emergence of internationally active small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key worldwide trends. The author investigates the interrelationships of entrepreneurial orientation, marketing strategy, tactics, and firm performance among SMEs affected by globalization. The author offers empirical findings and conclusions on t...

There is much research suggesting that the image consumers hold about a product’s country of origin can influence their purchase decision, but little empirical work has focused on the underlying cognitive processing. A flexible model is devised and tested to represent country image processing, using data from large samples of US and Japanese consum...

The literature on international services marketing from 31 academic journals in the period 1980 to 1998 is reviewed. This time frame contains the largest proportion of scholarly works published on international services marketing to date. Results reveal that the extant literature is relatively sparse, with much research focused on highly specific i...

Compares consumer preferences for goods made abroad and in the home country by both foreign and home-country firms. These preferences and the intervening role of price-quality attributes are assessed in an empirical study using conjoint analysis and a MANOVA procedure. Results suggest that country of manufacture and product quality strongly influen...

We investigate the role of information in the internationalization of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Information internalization is fundamentally antecedent to SME internationalization and is being facilitated increasingly by recent important trends. We offer a conceptual explanation and related propositions on information internalization, em...

Firms behave differently in free trade zones than in confined, domestic markets. To investigate this phenomenon, a taxonomy is developed of small- and medium-sized companies, which operate in the developing North American free trade area. The study describes each firm grouping and its associated performance attributes, and offers theoretical and no...

This study presents a foreign language version of a popular scale for measuring entrepreneurship and tests the instrument's utility in cross-cultural settings as a means of validating it for use abroad. Entrepreneurship refers to the pursuit of creative or novel solutions to challenges confronting the firm, including the development or enhancement...