Content area
Full Text
Abstract: The current study investigates the internationalization, entrepreneurship, and innovation of the entrepreneurial firms in China. We argue that the firms' international initial public offering (IPO) and R&D activities and growth processes are largely related to their internationalization, innovation, and entrepreneurship processes. The research sample consists of 109 Chinese entrepreneurial firms, which are listed on either the ChiNext or Nasdaq. The research examines the relationships between the firms' international IPO listing and R&D intensity, and how the domestic-listed firms and Nasdaq-listed entrepreneurial firms' innovation capacity relates to their entrepreneurial performance. The study uses innovative methods to examine the relationships above, and the results indicate that the hypotheses in this study are supported.
Keywords: innovation, internationalization, entrepreneurship and China context
(ProQuest: ... denotes formula omitted.)
The research into small and medium-sized entrepreneurial firms' internationalization process has increased during the past two decades (Buckley, 1989; Fujita, 1995). Given the increasing importance of the internationalization of these entrepreneurial firms, international entrepreneurship has become a hot issue for both entrepreneurship and international business researchers (Bruton, Ahlstrom, & Li, 2010; Oviatt & McDougall, 2005). Jones (1999) generally views entrepreneurship, particularly for these high-technology based young entrepreneurial firms, innovation and internationalization as a hot research issue.
Entrepreneur can be defined as one who undertakes innovations, finance and business acumen in an effort to transform innovations into economic goods. This may result in new organizations or may be part of revitalizing mature organizations in response to a perceived opportunity. The most obvious form of entrepreneurship is that of starting new businesses. In recent years, more and more entrepreneurs have intended to explore and exploit valuable and global opportunities (Shane, 2003), and leverage abilities to manage uncertainty in a proactive manner (Onetti, Zucchella, Jones, & McDougall, 2010). Some scholars further indicated that innovation and internationalization could be considered respectively as two major growth options (Ansoff, 1957; Onetti et al., 2010; Vernon, 1966) in the current hyper- competition and complexity of a global environment (Si & Bruton, 1999). Therefore, the processes of innovation and internationalization for entrepreneurial firms are likely to be key factors for these firms' performance, particularly. Some scholars reported that the process studies are motivated by obtaining new insights, new knowledge, and new business models in the current international business...