UNDERSTANDING “TOWARD A THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL NEW VENTURES” BY OVIATT AND McDOUGALL (1994).

WEEK 1: THE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

BY

NAME: ISRAEL OHIA

DATE: 12TH JUNE 2013.

MODULE: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AND EMERGING MARKETS (KMGT-620-5A)

INSTRUCTOR: Dr. JIM SKERTICH

INTRODUCTION: The article written by Oviatt and McDougall (1994) more than a decade ago and attracted so much attention is in regard to young firms and their growth in the global marketplace. In their article, they were able to bring to fore the importance of International New Ventures (INVs), internationalization and their advantages to the global marketplace. SHENKAR, O. and LUO, Y. (2008, p.11) describes INVs as firms that target the international market as they are launching their operations while according to SHENKAR, O. and LUO, Y. (2008, p.534), Oviatt and McDougall (1994) defined INVs as a business organization from its start off, seeks competitive advantage from the use of resources and the sale of output from different countries. Oviatt and McDougall (1994) asserted that age at internationalization was critical to its successful survival, expansion and performance whereas ZAHRA, S.A. (2005) was of the view that variation could impact on the clarity of an organizations essence to internationalization. They also opined that for a firm to internationalize, it is influenced by its production capacity, the size of its home market, economic and cultural forces as well as traditional firms that enter into the international market. Of note also was the issue and importance of International Entrepreneurship (IE), which has received scholarly attention in the past. In her article, ZAHRA, S.A. (2005) was able to identify some factors that give new firms the competitive advantage in the globalized economy though she was quick to add that there were a few points Oviatt and