Innovation and internationalisation during times of economic growth, crisis, and recovery prior to Covid-19: A configurational approach comparing Spanish manufacturing family and non-family firms

Based primarily on the Resource-Based View and prior evidence, this study gauges the potential differences in innovative behaviour between international family firms and non-family firms when conditions change drastically in the business environment (i.e. from a situation of economic growth to one of downturn, and then to recovery). The research setting is a large sample of Spanish manufacturing firms between 2007 and 2016 (i.e. pre-Covid-19). During this period (2009-2013), the global economic and financial crisis affected Spain. Thus, three sub-periods are distinguished in the empirical analysis: growth, crisis, and recovery. Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis, our findings show that the paths of innovation activities that promote internationalisation via exporting in family and non-family firms are somewhat dissimilar in each sub-period, supporting the argument that the causal effect of innovation on internationalisation is heavily dependent on environmental conditions. Compared to non-family firms, our results show that when family firms internationalise, they follow a wide variety and more stable number of paths in innovation activities. Our findings also provide additional evidence to support the argument of heterogeneity among family firms.

Towards an integrated and longitudinal life-cycle framework of international entrepreneurship: Exploring entrepreneurial orientation, capabilities, and network advantages overcoming barriers to internationalization

This article consists of five complementary parts. The Introduction portrays the increasing challenges of entrepreneurial internationalization encountered by smaller and younger firms facing highly competitive, difficult, and near-crisis environments. The literature review of the extant internationalization theories, in five related streams, will examine each stream's benefits, contribution, and difficulties from the evolving perspective of an internationalizing enterprise over the span of its life-cycle, ranging from embryonic to growth and maturing stages. Based on the current and prevailing experience, a longitudinally integrated internationalization framework addressing different aspects evolving over the firm's life-cycle stages is proposed and its necessary building blocks are discussed. A critical examination of the framework from the perspectives of both the received theory and ongoing practice points to its advantages and opportunity for further complementary scholarly developments beyond this article.