International Entrepreneurship: Innovation Across Borders

Is starting a business in Canada the same as starting one in Japan? And what happens when a startup tries to sell to both countries on Day One?

International Entrepreneurship (IE) is a unique domain that sits at the intersection of international business, entrepreneurship, and strategy. While mainstream entrepreneurship often focuses on domestic growth, IE focuses on cross-border and cross-cultural dimensions.

Defining the Field

According to the seminal definition by Oviatt and McDougall (2005):

"International entrepreneurship is the discovery, enactment, evaluation, and exploitation of opportunities—across national borders—to create future goods and services."

This definition moves beyond simple "exporting." It suggests that the opportunity itself is international in nature.

The Three Pillars of Research

Jones et al. (2011) reviewed over 300 articles to classify exactly what this field studies. They identified three major types of research:

1. Entrepreneurial Internationalization (The Process)

This stream asks "How?" It is concerned with the process of going global. Researchers study how entrepreneurs utilize networks (social capital) and organizational agility to enter foreign markets.

2. International Comparisons (The Context)

This stream asks "Where?" It involves cross-country and cross-cultural comparisons. The goal is to understand how entrepreneurship takes different forms in different contexts (e.g., "How does risk-taking differ between US and Chinese founders?").

3. Comparative Entrepreneurial Internationalization (The Hybrid)

This stream compares the process across different cultures. Dominated by theories of Institutional Theory and Human Capital, it asks: "Do startups in developing economies internationalize faster or slower than those in developed economies, and why?"

Connection to "Born Globals"

International entrepreneurship is closely related to the concept of the Born Global Startup.

In traditional models, companies grew big at home before going abroad. In IE theory, ventures often start right from the beginning with a business model where suppliers and customers are not in the same country, bypassing the domestic stage entirely.