AIB 2012 Conference Proceedings - Academy of International ...

SUNDAY
business program. Specifically, the participants will hear how one university developed a special curriculum for
the Bachelor of Science in International Business program and how this has induced the internationalization of
the core courses of the mainline undergraduate business degree. Another university will discuss why and how
its entire undergraduate business program evolved to focus on international business. The third university's
presentation focuses on how the international business component of its concentration is delivered entirely
overseas in one semester. Finally, the fourth presentation discusses how college led study abroad programs
initiated with the international business concentration subsequently were redesigned to become integral to the
Global Learning Requirement that every business student must complete prior to graduation. The concluding
part of the panel discussion will focus on the broader topic of different paths to a solid undergraduate
international business program for a specific IB degree/concentration and beyond. Participants will receive
detailed descriptions of each panel module. (For more information, please contact: Nicholas Athanassiou,
Northeastern University, USA: n.athanassiou@neu.edu)
Session: 1.4.11 - Interactive
Track: 11 - SMEs and Entrepreneurship
Emerging Domains for International Entrepreneurship Scholars
Presented On: July 1, 2012 - 14:30-15:45
Chair: Tanvi Kothari, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
Exploring and Conceptualizing the Internationalization Pathway of For-Profit Social Entrepreneurs
Igor Kalinic, University of Groningen
Maximiliaan Johannes Pater, University of Groningen
Although there is an emerging interest for social entrepreneurs, limited attention has been devoted to their
approach to internationalization. The present study aims at exploring and conceptualizing the
internationalization pathway of for-profit social entrepreneurs. By qualitatively analyzing three for-profit social
enterprises, it emerges that traditional models of gradual and rapid internationalization have less explanatory
power for for-profit social enterprises. By combining literature on social entrepreneurship and
internationalization pathways, we argue that social entrepreneurs have a distinct pathway and their ‘social'
nature influences how this pathway takes form. The formulated propositions serve as a base to further examine
and empirically investigate the phenomenon. (For more information, please contact: Igor Kalinic, University of
Groningen, Netherlands: i.kalinic@rug.nl)
Born to Learn - Knowledge Exploration and Exploitation of 'Born Transnationals'
Joerg Freiling, University of Bremen
Mareike Schmidt, University of Bremen
The globalization process stimulates more and more start-ups entering international markets at their earliest
convenience. Supported by modern IT and logistics systems, this option is available for many ventures that
become more and more independent from their country-of-origin. For transnational companies, as heterarchical
networks without typical internal hub structures and a high degree of responsiveness, this holds particularly
true. This is the reason why this paper focuses the ‘born transnational' type of international entrepreneurship.
The question arises how international ventures achieve international competitiveness. This paper argues that
the pace and the alignment of processes of external and internal learning are of utmost importance. Knowledge
generation, absorption, integration, and company-wide transfer play a pivotal role in this regard. Insofar, the
research question of the paper is: What are the factors that accelerate organizational learning of ‘born
transnationals' Based on competence-based theory and a particular model of organizational learning, the paper
AIB 2012 Conference Proceedings
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