Ivo Zander

Uppsala University | UU · Department of Business Studies

Professors Robert A. Baron and Michael Frese are the joint recipients of the 2024 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research. Their research contributions have helped establish the disciplinary foundation necessary to explore entrepreneurship from theoretical and applied psychological perspectives. From a theoretical psychological perspective, Prof...

Professor Per Davidsson is the recipient of the 2023 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research. Throughout an extraordinarily productive career, he has made invaluable contributions in building the field of entrepreneurship. His early studies on entrepreneurship and culture and his studies on the growth of small businesses played an important role...

Plain English Summary The winner of the 2022 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research, Saras Sarasvathy, has improved our understanding of how entrepreneurs make decisions and has developed new concepts and ideas about the entrepreneurial process. Professor Sarasvathy introduced the term “effectuation” to emphasize how (expert) entrepreneurs oper...

We generate new knowledge about financial crises and their consequences for MNC technological development, thereby addressing a largely uncharted issue at the crossroads of the organization, strategy and international business literatures. Drawing on threat-rigidity theory, we argue that financial crises have an overall negative effect on MNC techn...

Plain English Summary The winner of the 2020 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research, John Haltiwanger, has pioneered research showing that it is mainly firm age, not size, that matters for job creation. Through analyzing the relationship between employment, growth, and firms, he has advanced our understanding of how the economy works. He has do...

The present volume discusses the progress made in progress made in the theory and practice of international business (IB) strategy in the last few decades. The book captures the differences in motivations and decision-making processes between smaller and larger firms, private, family and state-owned, emerging or developed market multinational enter...

We document how, in the early years of high technology firms, the origination of technological knowledge starts with firm founders, then shifts to other firm members, and later on to external stakeholders. We further show that greater reliance on founder technological knowledge is initially positively but later on negatively associated with new pro...

This article concerns the integration of technological knowledge within multinational corporations (MNCs). We empirically investigate the degree of technological knowledge integration of competence-creating subsidiaries with headquarters and sister subsidiaries and explore the effects of intersubsidiary differentiation. Data on the complete US pate...

Research Summary We argue that interrelated processes of knowledge codification and uncertainty reduction lead to the contraction of vertical firm boundaries of new high technology ventures over time. Consistent with our arguments we show that, over time, the outsourcing of R&D is slower than outsourcing of manufacturing, while outsourcing of marke...

This paper probes the extent to which the rise of the ‘modern’ multinational corporation (MNC) has come with significantly altered patterns in the emergence and diffusion of technological capabilities across units of the MNC network. It draws upon a database containing the complete U.S. patenting history of 24 Swedish multinationals over the 1946–2...

This article reviews historical and contemporary patterns of how business firms extend their operations outside their country of origin. Addressing the ‘why,’ ‘when,’ ‘where,’ and ‘how’ of business firms' internationalization, it illustrates how over time traditional and incremental approaches to internationalization have evolved toward increasingl...

In an article that marked the beginning of extensive research on foreign technological activity in the multinational enterprise (MNE), Robert Ronstadt (1978) suggested an evolutionary pattern by which initial R&D investments in foreign subsidiaries expand into significant capabilities in developing new and improved products for foreign or even glob...

Knight and Cavusgil’s award-winning article has played an important role in the development of the growing body of research on companies that internationalize early and rapidly. These “born global” firms represent important contributors to many economies, often as key players in ecosystems that support large multinational enterprises. Despite their...

This paper intersects extant theories of the MNC with empirically observed patterns in the intra-company emergence and diffusion of technological capabilities. It draws upon a database containing the complete patenting history of 24 Swedish multinationals over the 1890-2008 period, which allows for the identification of when and where in the multin...

This paper develops a people-centric perspective on the geographical dispersion of technological renewal in the multinational corporation (MNC). We contend that a large proportion of all foreign technological advancements can be attributed to a handful of individual inventors, suggesting a blockbuster effect of subsidiary technological development....

Purpose – Entrepreneurship researchers have recently engaged in discussions on the boundaries and legitimacy of the field of entrepreneurship research but have overlooked the significance and implications of core assumptions. The purpose of this paper is to invite a more focussed discussion on the role of assumptions in the field of entrepreneurshi...

This paper proposes subversion and resistance as two fundamental aspects of entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial process. Taking a start in the established notion of subversive activities in art, we outline their main expressions and consequences in the entrepreneurship setting. We further address the accompanying issue of resistance, and defin...

This paper investigates the sources of technological growth of the multinational corporation. We conceptualize and shed empirical light on whether foreign investment strategies based on advanced greenfield subsidiaries, acquired subsidiaries, or a combination of both increase the likelihood of entry into technologies that represent new additions to...

The primary ambition of this chapter is to identify the origin and drivers of superstar foreign subsidiaries, that is those very few subsidiaries that come to account for consistent and highly significant technological contributions to the multinational group. It illustrates the evolution of two foreign subsidiaries of two Swedish multinationals -...

This pioneering book explores creative and entrepreneurial processes as they are played out in the field of art. Nine original chapters by an international group of scholars take a detailed look at the sources of new art ideas, how they are transformed into tangible objects of art, make their way through often hostile selection environments, and ul...

The international business literature has identified the overall emergence of technologically advanced foreign subsidiaries of the multinational enterprise (MNE), but little is known about the extent to which individual subsidiaries are able to sustain their contribution to the technological and strategic renewal of the multinational group. This pa...

Purpose – We examine the fundamental assumptions and features of the Uppsala model of internationalization and argue that we need to look beyond this model for studying internationalization processes in the multinational corporations (MNCs) of today. The purpose of our paper is to identify gaps and neglected issues regarding MNCs' internationalizat...

This paper explores the intraorganizational ecology of corporate entrepreneurship. Drawing on the literature on variation, selection, and retention, we conceptualize the selection of new business ventures within the established firm as a multi-level and differentiated process, and develop a set of propositions about the determinants of the likeliho...

In answering the questions 'why does the firm exist?' and 'what determines its boundaries?', established theories of the firm have focused on boundary choice in a context of relatively easily identified and evaluated alternatives. This paper starts by asking the kindred question 'why does the firm come into existence?', shifting attention to the ci...

The initial stages of internationalisation, prior to firms having established their definitive sources of advantage, remain the relatively unexplored area of the international business (IB) literature. At these early stages, where firms are seeking to establish themselves, and new multinational firms are appearing to exploit new opportunities creat...

This paper argues for the important role of customers as a source of competitive advantage and firm growth, an issue which has been largely neglected in the resource-based view of the firm. It conceptualizes Penrose's (1959) notion of an 'inside track' and illustrates how in-depth knowledge about established customers combines with joint problem-so...

This paper offers a microlevel explanation for the uneven spatial and sectoral concentration of firms across national boundaries. Focusing on the geographical movements of (prospective) entrepreneurs and the cognitive processes that underlie new business formation, it is suggested that powerful forces work against the entrepreneur's active response...

Este artículo conceptualiza los micro-procesos del espíritu empresarial, examina cómo se ven afectados por la introducción de la dimensión geográfica y explica a grandes rasgos las implicaciones para la formación de nuevos clusters, en particular desde una perspectiva política. Sugiere que la formación de nuevos clusters a nivel nacional está asoci...

The internationalization of technological capabilities in the multinational corporation has produced a growing number of conceptual frameworks that emphasize the ability to leverage innovation activities in the international innovation network. In particular, it has been stressed that increasingly complex and diverse structures generally provide op...

This paper addresses an increasingly debated issue in international business literature: the emergence of cross-border innovation in the multinational corporation. It identifies duplication and diversification of advanced technological capabilities as increasingly important dimensions of the multinational network, and proceeds to investigate how gr...

Business strategy is becoming increasingly ’pluralist’, drawing on the insights of different disciplines and business practice in different parts of the world. This book brings together, under three main headings, the work and ideas of leading international scholars working in the field: Part I, Technology in the firm (4 chapters); Strategy/organiz...

This paper empirically investigates how internationalization influences the generation of new technology within the multinational corporation. Data on the introduction of 756 technologies by 23 Swedish multinationals over the 1971–1990 period show that foreign units account for an increasing share of all new technologies that are introduced in the...

This paper examines the role of guanxi in the emergence of the Chinese institutional environment, institutional structure and business environment. In China, the institutional environment, institutional structure and resulting business environment are rapidly evolving and are not yet stable or predictable. Under these circumstances, guanxi is impor...

This article examines longitudinal changes in the geographical location of advanced technological capabilities in the multinational corporation. Data on the postwar development of 24 Swedish multinationals show increasing dispersion and duplication of capabilities within individual technologies, offering flexibility advantages as well as an enhance...

The article analyses the postwar evolution of technological diversification in the multinational corporation. Longitudinal data on 24 Swedish multinationals suggest that technological diversification has become a significant characteristic of the multinational corporation, and show that units located outside the country of origin have assumed a dom...

This paper draws together theory on spatial agglomeration of economic activity, innovation processes, and international business to address the phenomena of spatial clustering, accumulation of knowledge in local milieux and firm competitiveness. It builds a conceptual model explaining the process of local knowledge accumulation and why there are im...

This paper draws together theory on spatial agglomeration of economic activity, innovation processes, and international business to address the phenomena of spa- tial clustering, accumulation of knowledge in local mileux and firm competitiveness. It builds a conceptual model ex- plaining the process of local knowledge accumulation and why there are...