IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jinten/v20y2022i1d10.1007_s10843-021-00303-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do economic freedom, business experience, and firm size affect internationalization speed? Evidence from small firms in Chile, Colombia, and Peru

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Felzensztein

    (Clarkson University)

  • George Saridakis

    (University of Kent)

  • Bochra Idris

    (Aston University)

  • Gabriel P. Elizondo

    (Formerly Universidad Adolfo Ibañez)

Abstract

This paper focuses on SMEs from the Latin American region and aims to build on existing literature on the emergence of the institution-based view in combination with the resource-based view. We contribute to existing literature by extending the application of the aforementioned theories to firms in three under-researched countries in this region. Specifically, we contribute to the extant literature by providing empirical insights on how home country–specific resources and firm-specific resources can affect the internationalization speed of SMEs in Latin American region. In order to achieve our objectives, we empirically examine the role of economic freedom (EF), prior business/international experience, and firm size on speed of internationalization. We use a dataset of Latin American SMEs, employing Poisson and negative binomial (NB) regression techniques. Our data cover three main Latin American Pacific Rim economies—Chile, Colombia, and Peru—with similar economic specializations, geographical borders, and economic growth dynamics. We find that (1) some parts of Economic Freedom Index (EFI) accelerate the speed of internationalization, whereas other areas slow it down or have no effect. Specifically, the closer to full EF the home country is in terms of regulations and government, the shorter the time to internationalize. (2) More experienced management teams are more likely to translate their knowledge into faster international market entry, but this pays off only for larger sized SMEs in contrast to smaller ones due to complementarities between managerial resources and physical, financial, and organizational resources. (3) Finally, industry, firm location, and country destination can only weakly explain the speed of internationalization. The findings add to the literature on SME internationalization in emerging markets and point towards potential policies to stimulate growth by SMEs in these markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Felzensztein & George Saridakis & Bochra Idris & Gabriel P. Elizondo, 2022. "Do economic freedom, business experience, and firm size affect internationalization speed? Evidence from small firms in Chile, Colombia, and Peru," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 115-156, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jinten:v:20:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s10843-021-00303-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s10843-021-00303-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10843-021-00303-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10843-021-00303-w?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jinten:v:20:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s10843-021-00303-w. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.