AIB 2012 Conference Proceedings - Academy of International ...

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Moderate Regional Diversification for Superior Performance
Elena Beleska-Spasova, University of Reading
The lack of clear empirical consensus about the nature of the relationship between the firm's level of geographic
diversification (GD) and its performance (P) impedes the resolution of one of the key strategic questions in
international business: What is the appropriate level of geographic diversification This paper contributes to
this ongoing debate by exploring the hitherto empirically under-researched role of regional strategic orientation
on the performance outcomes of international firms. It does so, by proposing and testing hypotheses that focus
on a key research question: does the level of intra- and inter-regional diversification impact firms' performance
The proposed hypotheses that intra-regional diversification strategy outperforms the inter-regional
diversification strategy were tested on an original set of 356 British exporting SMEs. The novel contribution of
this study is the identification of the bi-regional strategy as the optimal threshold in the GD/P relationship. The
findings implicate the bi-regional diversification as an optimal internationalization strategy for superior
performance. That is, a firm that has the bulk of their international sales balanced across two regions (a home
and a host region) tends to outperform both firms with intra(single)-regional orientation and globally diversified
firms. (For more information, please contact: Elena Beleska-Spasova, University of Reading, United Kingdom:
e.beleska-spasova@henley.reading.ac.uk)
Liabilities of Foreignness and International Growth: Examination of IP-based and Product-based Strategies
Johan Bruneel, Imperial College
Theoni-Eirini Symeonidou, Imperial College
Erkko Autio, Imperial College
We investigate the effect of liabilities of foreignness on internationalization, using IPR-based and product-based
commercialization strategies of US start-ups as our empirical lens. We model the propensity to internationalize
and international intensity as a function of liabilities of foreignness, operationalized as the start-up's foreign
market entry mode. We use the longitudinal panel provided by the Kauffman Firm Survey, which tracks nearly 5
000 start-ups in their first six years of operation. We find that the liability of foreignness is significantly greater
for product-based than for IP-based commer¬cialization strategies. Start-ups licensing-out IPRs are more likely
to internationalize and exhibit a high internationalization intensity. We find that different commercialization
strategies imply different liabilities of foreignness in the context of internationalization, leading us to distinguish
between two types of liabilities of foreignness: LoF as an operator and LoF as a source. (For more information,
please contact: Johan Bruneel, Imperial College, United Kingdom: j.bruneel@imperial.ac.uk)
Session: 1.1.7 - Competitive
Track: 1 - Institutions, Governance, and CSR
Corporate Citizenship and Environmental Practices
Presented On: July 1, 2012 - 09:00-10:15
Chair: Carolyn P. Egri, Simon Fraser University
Antecedents and Performance Outcomes of Eco-Friendly Marketing Strategies in Global Hotel Chains: A
Resource-based Perspective
Constantinos N. Leonidou, Leeds University
Leonidas C. Leonidou, University of Cyprus
Thomas A. Fotiadis, University of Macedonia
Bilge Aykol, Dokuz Eylul University
AIB 2012 Conference Proceedings
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