The International Growth of Born Global Firms: Tracking Drivers and Dimensions Along Time

International new ventures or born globals have been studied and discussed broadly as regards their start-up, mainly trying to define and examine some key dimensions of their internationalisation process, namely intensity or degree, speed, and scope of internationalisation. The factors triggering this phenomenon have also been investigated but have rarely been related to the above key dimensions and tracked through time, along the born global life cycle. In other words, little research is available into the continued internationalisation of these firms (Liesch et al., 2007). Such work would give further insight into the strategic options and development of the born global initial trajectory and contribute to theory building. The objective of the current paper therefore is to investigate which factors are important regarding the dimensions of speed, scope and intensity along the internationalisation of born globals. It furthermore attempts to profile two born global firms and their internationalisation process along these drivers and dimensions, drawing partly on recent approaches to model accelerated internationalisation. Both companies are internet-enabled, relying on e-commerce as their only selling platform. In this business, firms are expected to be “naturally” born global (Kobrin, 2001). Our findings do not fully support this view and highlight the role of resources and capabilities in differentiated growth patterns, irrespectively of the industry (Rumelt, 1991).