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Week 7Part 2 · Sustain and internationalise≈ 70 min

International Market Entry Strategies

Handbook topic · International Market Entry Strategies — how small firms use innovation to expand globally

Going abroad means making two decisions: where to go and how to go. This week gives you a structured way to screen a foreign market through its political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors, then works through every entry mode in the slides — exporting, licensing, franchising, joint ventures, wholly owned subsidiaries (greenfield or acquisition) and digital entry — with their benefits and drawbacks. The TNA, Walmart and eight-company Kelley cases show that a mode only works when it fits both the market and the firm’s resources.

The big question

How should a small, resource-constrained firm choose a foreign market and the way it enters it — and how do you justify that choice?

By the end of this week you can

  • Screen a foreign market with the six PESTEL categories and turn the findings into opportunities, threats and an enter or do-not-enter decision.
  • Explain each entry mode in the slides and state its main benefits and drawbacks.
  • Compare entry modes on control, risk, resource commitment, speed and fit for SMEs.
  • Justify an entry mode for an SME with the Week 1 theories: Uppsala model, OLI paradigm, network theory and transaction cost theory.
  • Draw practical lessons from international expansion failures and successes.
Week 1 · The Week 1 theories explain why a mode fits: the Uppsala model (gradual commitment as knowledge grows; psychic distance), the OLI paradigm (ownership, location and internalisation advantages before FDI), network theory (relationships with foreign customers, suppliers, distributors and governments) and transaction cost theory (using the market versus doing it inside the firm). The PESTEL framework from Mini-Lecture 1.3 returns here as the market-selection screen.Week 3 · Family firms tend to follow the Uppsala model, entering countries with low psychic distance first and relying on trusted network ties — useful if your Individual Report is about a family firm.Week 4 · The Week 4 tutorial names social franchising and hybrid digital business models as ways social enterprises enter foreign markets — directly relevant to an Ashoka venture in the Learning Diary.Week 6 · International new ventures face liabilities of newness, smallness and foreignness and use licensing, franchising and networks as alternative ways to mobilise resources. This week shows the same modes as entry choices.Week 8 · Partner-based modes (licensing, franchising, joint ventures, agents) only work if you can build and manage the right networks.Week 9 · The resource commitment of your entry mode drives the funding plan: a wholly owned subsidiary needs far more capital than exporting or licensing.Week 11 · Licensing depends on owning proprietary rights, and protection of intellectual property is a listed benefit of a wholly owned subsidiary. TNA’s counterfeit problem in Indonesia shows why IP belongs in the entry decision.Week 12 · Digital internationalisation — serving foreign customers through websites instead of a physical presence — is the digital entry mode listed this week.

Selecting a foreign market

Mini-Lecture 7.1Open the slides

Before choosing how to enter, decide whether a market is worth entering. The lecture’s approach: examine the host country’s external environment systematically, then weigh up what you find.

Zucchella, Hagen and Serapio (2018) treat market selection as an examination of the foreign country’s external environment, using the six PESTEL categories you met in Week 1. For each category you ask questions about current conditions and upcoming changes, because a market that looks attractive today can change when governments, laws or the economy shift.

The aim is not to fill in a checklist. Only some factors will matter for your particular business; the skill is finding those, interpreting them and reaching a decision you can defend.

The approach to market selection

  1. 1
    Examine the external environment

    Look at the target country across political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors.

  2. 2
    Identify the factors relevant to your business

    Use the guiding questions for each category (below). Focus on what affects your industry now and what changes are coming.

  3. 3
    Analyse and interpret the data

    Turn the factors you found into opportunities and threats in that market.

  4. 4
    Make an informed decision

    Decide whether to enter the market or not. If you enter, the threats you found tell you what the entry mode and adaptations must cope with.

PESTEL as a market-selection screenZucchella, Hagen and Serapio (2018)

Six independent lenses on a foreign market. Mini-Lecture 7.1 gives guiding questions for each so you can find the factors that matter to your business.

P
Political

Which government policies and regulations affect your industry now? Are policy changes coming? How would a change of government affect your operations?

Example — Indonesia’s drive to attract foreign direct investment encouraged TNA to open a store in Jakarta — and attracted rival brands too.

E
Economic

What are economic conditions like, and how does the economy perform compared with other countries? Are changes coming? Look specifically at interest rates, exchange-rate volatility and inflation.

Example — A weaker rupiah made Indonesian textiles cheaper for TNA.

S
Social

What social trends and attitudes exist in the market? How are demographics changing? What social changes are coming, including the effect of employees working from home?

Example — Walmart’s requirement that staff smile at strangers made many German shoppers uncomfortable.

T
Technological

Is the market technologically aware? How is technology changing consumer behaviour? What technological changes are coming?

Example — TNA’s Indonesian customers already bought online, so it could test demand before opening a store.

E
Environmental

What environmental trends and issues are current? How does your industry contribute to environmental problems? What ecological changes are coming?

L
Legal

Which legal regulations affect your industry now? Are changes to legal rules coming, and how would they affect your operations?

Example — TNA found IP registration in Indonesia complicated, and business licences and import permits slow.

How to use it · Answer only the questions that matter for your venture, support each answer with evidence (country statistics, reports) and label each finding as an opportunity or a threat before you decide.
Use it in your assessment
Individual Report: country context and market choice

The brief asks which market you will enter and why. Show the screen, not just the verdict: two or three decisive PESTEL factors for your target country, each linked to an opportunity or threat for your firm, then the decision. Screening two candidate countries on the same factors makes your choice easy for the marker to follow.

Reading the economic environment: inflation, interest rates and exchange rates

Mini-Lecture 7.1Open the slides

The lecture gives the economic environment extra attention and names three indicators to watch: interest rates, the volatility of exchange rates and inflation.

Economic conditions decide whether customers can afford your offer and what it costs you to operate in the market. Start with three questions: what are conditions like now, how is the economy performing compared with other countries, and are changes coming?

Inflation deserves a closer look because it works through several channels at once — your costs, your wage bill, your customers’ spending and your cost of borrowing.

How inflation can affect a business
ChannelWhat happensWhy it matters when you enter a market
Cost of goods and servicesA general rise in prices increases the cost of raw materials, production and operating expenses.Your cost base in the host country can climb after you have entered.
Wage demandsA higher cost of living puts pressure on businesses to raise wages.Labour costs rise — most for modes where you employ local staff yourself.
Consumer demandRising prices cut disposable income, so spending on non-essential goods and services falls.Retailers, restaurants and leisure companies that rely on consumer spending are hit hardest.
Interest ratesCentral banks may raise interest rates to curb inflation.Borrowing to finance investment, expansion or day-to-day operations becomes more expensive.

Source: Mini-Lecture 7.1 (Zucchella, Hagen and Serapio, 2018).

Tip
Make economic data do some work

When you cite inflation, interest-rate or exchange-rate data for a target country, say what it does to your business: cost base, wages, customer demand or cost of borrowing. Take figures from a reliable source and reference them.

The entry modes, one by one

Mini-Lecture 7.2Open the slides

An entry mode is the arrangement through which a firm serves a foreign market. The lecture lists four families: exporting, contractual modes (licensing, franchising, joint ventures), wholly owned subsidiaries (greenfield or acquisition) and digital modes.

Market entry modesZucchella, Hagen and Serapio (2018)

The modes in Mini-Lecture 7.2, ordered roughly from the least to the most of the firm’s own resources committed inside the foreign market. Digital entry and exporting need no physical presence abroad; licensing and franchising rely on an independent local partner; a joint venture creates a new, shared organisation; a wholly owned subsidiary is 100% owned by the parent.

  1. 1
    Digital entry

    Virtual presence through websites and platforms (Week 12).

    Example — TNA sold to Indonesian customers online before it opened a store.

  2. 2
    Exporting

    Produce at home, ship abroad.

  3. 3
    Licensing

    A foreign firm makes your proprietary product for royalties or fees.

  4. 4
    Franchising

    Franchisees run units using your trademark, business model and systems.

  5. 5
    Joint venture

    Partners set up a new, shared business organisation.

    Example — Carrefour entered China in 1995 through a joint venture with a Chinese consulting firm.

  6. 6
    Wholly owned subsidiary

    100% owned: built new (greenfield) or bought (direct acquisition).

    Example — TNA opened its Jakarta store as a greenfield investment with 100% ownership.

How to use it · Place your venture on this spectrum and argue from its resources: the further along, the more capital, local knowledge and management attention the mode demands. Only the investment modes at the far end give shared (joint venture) or full (subsidiary) control of operations abroad.
ExportingZucchella, Hagen and Serapio (2018)

Producing goods in your home country and then shipping them abroad to a foreign market. The best-known approach to market entry and very cost-effective.

Exporting: the costs to plan for

  • Statutory costs — excise duties on exporting goods from the home country and import duties in the foreign market.
  • Logistics costs — transporting goods to the foreign market.
LicensingZucchella, Hagen and Serapio (2018)

An arrangement whereby a firm with proprietary rights to a product grants permission to another firm to manufacture that product for specified royalties or other payments such as technical fees.

Licensing: benefits and drawbacks for the licensor

Benefits
  • Extra income for technical know-how and services.
  • Reaches markets that exports cannot reach.
  • Quick expansion without large capital investment or much risk.
  • Lower political risk, because the licensee is usually 100% locally owned.
Drawbacks
  • Loss of control can lead to poor-quality output.
  • An incompetent partner can ruin the licensor’s reputation.
  • The licensee can become a competitor, selling into markets where the licensor already operates.
Franchising

A business strategy in which a company (franchisor) allows independent entrepreneurs (franchisees) to use its trademark, business model and operational systems in exchange for a fee or royalty.

Franchising: benefits and challenges

Benefits
  • Lower investment and operational costs for expansion.
  • Uses franchisees’ local knowledge and expertise.
  • Faster market penetration and brand recognition.
Challenges
  • Cultural differences mean the business model may need adapting.
  • Legal and regulatory hurdles in foreign markets.
  • Quality control and keeping brand standards consistent across locations.
Joint venture

Occurs when one organisation enters into an alliance with another organisation with similar interests and institutionalises a new business organisation — a commercial arrangement between two or more participants who agree to co-operate to achieve a particular objective.

Joint ventures: why firms form them and what goes wrong

Reasons to form one
  • Desire to expand.
  • Need to develop new products or expand into new markets.
  • Access to a partner’s greater or more specialised expertise or resources.
  • Sharing the costs and risks of developing new markets or technologies.
Potential problems
  • Conflict over unequal (asymmetric) new investments.
  • Mistrust over proprietary knowledge.
  • Performance ambiguity — how to split the pie.
  • Cultural clashes.
  • How and when to end the relationship.
Wholly owned subsidiary

The parent company holds 100% ownership and full control of the subsidiary, which operates as a separate legal entity. The parent has full authority but may not be directly involved in day-to-day operations.

Wholly owned subsidiary: benefits and drawbacks

Benefits
  • Full control and autonomy — decision-making power and strategic alignment.
  • Protection of intellectual property.
  • Brand consistency and control of image.
  • A consistent customer experience.
Drawbacks
  • High initial investment.
  • Legal and regulatory challenges.
  • Limited access to local expertise.
  • Potential for cultural clash.

The slides name two routes to a wholly owned subsidiary — greenfield investment and direct acquisition — without defining them. The terms mean building a new operation yourself versus buying an existing one, and this week’s cases show both in action.

Two routes to a wholly owned subsidiary

Greenfield investment
  • Set up a new operation from scratch in the host country.
  • You choose the location, format and staff yourself.
  • Takes time and may need approvals: TNA first obtained an investment licence from Indonesia’s Investment Coordinating Board.
  • Examples: TNA’s Jakarta store; Tesco’s Fresh and Easy stores; Aldo’s and Nordstrom’s own stores.
Direct acquisition
  • Buy an existing business in the host country.
  • Gives an immediate presence: Walmart bought two German chains to be in the market ‘overnight’.
  • You inherit what you buy — Walmart was left with poorly located stores.
  • Integration can fail: Best Buy ran Five Star with separate IT, finance and supply chains.
Digital market entry (online internationalisation)Week 12 lecture slides

Making a firm’s products or services available to customers in foreign markets via websites — a virtual presence instead of physical-presence entry modes, and a less cost-intensive way to reach foreign customers.

Common pitfall
Name the mode precisely

The slides group joint ventures with licensing and franchising as contractual modes, but they differ: licensing and franchising are agreements with an independent local firm, while a joint venture creates a new organisation that the partners set up together. Writing ‘we will work with local partners’ is too vague to earn marks — name the mode and say what each side contributes.

Comparing entry modes: control, risk, commitment, speed and SME fit

Mini-Lecture 7.2Open the slides

The table turns the lecture’s benefits and drawbacks into five attributes you can use to justify a choice. Where the slides are silent, the cell says what follows from the mode’s definition or from this week’s cases.

Entry modes compared
Entry modeControlRiskResource commitmentSpeedFit for SMEs
Digital entryThe firm runs its own online channel and brand.Lowest financial exposure; the market’s legal and social factors still apply to online sales.Low — a less cost-intensive way to reach foreign customers (Week 12).Fast — customers anywhere can be reached through a website.Very strong: a cheap way to test demand, as TNA did before opening a store.
ExportingProduction stays at home, so product quality stays in the firm’s hands.Statutory costs (excise and import duties) and logistics costs.Low — no foreign operation; described as very cost-effective.Quick to start, because nothing has to be built abroad.Strong first step for SMEs with a physical product; lets them learn the market before committing more.
LicensingLow — the licensee manufactures; loss of control can mean poor-quality output.Low capital and political risk, but reputation damage from an incompetent partner, and the licensee may become a competitor.Low — no large capital investment; earns royalties and technical fees.Fast — the licensor can expand quickly.Suits SMEs that own proprietary rights but lack capital; weakest where IP is hard to protect.
FranchisingPartial — the franchisor sets the trademark, business model and systems, but brand standards across locations are hard to keep.Cultural adaptation of the model, legal and regulatory hurdles, quality control.Lower investment and operational costs; independent franchisees run the units.Fast market penetration and brand recognition.Suits SMEs with a proven, replicable concept and brand; uses franchisees’ local knowledge.
Joint ventureShared with the partner(s) in the new organisation.Costs and risks are shared, but conflict over investments, mistrust over proprietary knowledge, disputes over splitting the pie, cultural clashes and difficult exits.Medium — shared investment in a new business.Not stated in the slides; depends on finding a suitable partner and agreeing terms.Suits SMEs that need a partner’s specialised expertise, resources or market access and can accept shared control.
Wholly owned subsidiary — greenfieldFull: decision-making power, strategic alignment, IP protection, consistent brand and customer experience.The firm carries all the risk: high initial investment, legal and regulatory challenges, limited local expertise, cultural clash.High.Slowest — built from scratch and may need investment approval.Only for SMEs with capital and existing market knowledge, ideally in a psychically close market — as TNA did after first selling there online.
Wholly owned subsidiary — direct acquisitionFull ownership, but the acquired firm’s locations, systems and culture come with it.As greenfield, plus unsuitable inherited assets (Walmart) and integration problems (Best Buy and Five Star).High — the purchase price, plus any refurbishment.Fastest route to a physical presence.Rarely realistic for SMEs because of the capital required.

Based on Mini-Lecture 7.2 (Zucchella, Hagen and Serapio, 2018); digital entry from the Week 12 lecture; case evidence from Liu (2019), Yoder, Visich and Rustambekov (2016) and the Walmart video case. The slides list benefits and drawbacks only: they do not rate the modes on control, resource commitment or speed, or say which suit SMEs. Cells that go beyond a listed benefit or drawback — the whole Fit for SMEs column, and every speed cell except licensing (‘quickly expand’) and franchising (‘faster market penetration’) — are inferences from each mode’s definition or from the cases.

Insight
There is no universally best mode

Every mode trades control against commitment. More control (a wholly owned subsidiary) means more capital at risk and more local knowledge to build yourself; less commitment (licensing) means relying on a partner you do not control. The right answer depends on the venture’s resources, the market’s risks and what must be protected.

Common pitfall
Listing benefits is not justifying

Copying a mode’s generic benefits earns few marks. A justification links a named feature of your venture (a patented design, a small budget, a founder’s contacts) and a named feature of the market (weak IP protection, high psychic distance, strict regulation) to the mode — and explains why the closest alternatives are worse.

Justifying an entry mode for an SME

Mini-Lecture 7.2 with Week 1 theoriesOpen the slides

Markers reward an entry mode that is argued, not asserted. The theories from Week 1 supply the reasons.

What each Week 1 theory says about the entry decision
TheoryCore idea as taughtWhat it implies for the entry modeQuestion to ask about your venture
Uppsala model (Vahlne and Johanson, 2017)Internationalisation is an evolutionary process; knowledge is accumulated step by step; psychic distance matters.Start with low-commitment modes (digital, exporting, licensing) and psychically close markets; commit more as knowledge grows.How close is the market culturally, and what does the venture already know about it?
OLI paradigm (Dunning, 1977)Before foreign direct investment, a firm needs ownership, location and internalisation advantages.Choose investment modes (joint venture, wholly owned subsidiary) only when all three hold; without an internalisation advantage, exporting or a contract (licensing, franchising) is enough.What is the venture’s unique advantage, why this location, and why keep the activity inside the firm?
Network theory (Johanson and Mattsson, 1988)Success depends on long-term relationships with customers, suppliers, distributors and governments in the foreign market.Partner-based modes (franchising, licensing, joint ventures, agents) let an SME borrow local knowledge and relationships.Who are the venture’s partners in the target market, and what does each contribute?
Transaction cost theory (Coase, 1937, cited in Hennart, 2010)Compares the cost of using the market with doing it inside the firm: search and information, bargaining and decision, policing and enforcement costs.If finding, negotiating with and policing a partner is costly — for example where a licensee could become a competitor — ownership may be cheaper overall.How hard would it be to find, contract and monitor a reliable local partner?

A five-step justification

  1. 1
    State the SME and its advantage

    What kind of SME is it (start-up, family firm, social enterprise) and what is unique about it — usually its innovation?

  2. 2
    Name the market and its decisive factors

    Give two or three PESTEL findings from your market screen, with evidence.

  3. 3
    Choose one mode from the slides

    Describe it in one sentence so the marker knows exactly what you mean.

  4. 4
    Argue with theory

    Link the venture’s resources and the market’s factors to at least one Week 1 theory.

  5. 5
    Reject the alternatives and plan the adaptations

    Explain why the closest alternatives are weaker, which drawbacks of your chosen mode you will manage, and with which partners.

Use it in your assessment
Learning Diary: answering the entry-mode question

Keep it proportionate: entry mode shares the 25-mark cross-border reflection with SME type, adaptations and partners. Name the new market, choose one mode, give two reasons tied to the venture’s resources and the market, and one reason the main alternative is weaker. Many Ashoka ventures have little capital, so partner-based modes — franchising (the Week 4 tutorial names social franchising), licensing or a joint venture with a local organisation — are often easier to defend than a wholly owned subsidiary. Then name the key partners and adaptations (the handbook suggests the TOE-I framework) and reflect on how your group reasoned through the TNA or Walmart case.

Use it in your assessment
Individual Report: a consistent entry strategy

Make the mode consistent with the rest of the plan. A wholly owned subsidiary needs a funding plan that covers a high initial investment (Week 9); licensing or franchising needs protected IP and a trademark (Week 11); partner-based modes need the networks you describe (Week 8). A phased path — digital sales or exporting first, then a store — is legitimate if you justify it with the Uppsala model, as TNA’s route shows.

Tip
A sentence frame for your justification

“[Venture] will enter [country] through [mode] because [venture’s resource or advantage] and [market factor]. According to [theory, author year], [reason]. [Alternative mode] was rejected because [drawback from the slides]. The main risk of [mode], [drawback], will be managed by [adaptation or partner].”

Lessons from international expansion failures and successes

Tutorial readingOpen the slides

Yoder, Visich and Rustambekov (2016) compare five service companies that stumbled abroad with three that succeeded. Failures usually had several causes; every success shared one — an understanding of local customers.

Eight expansions at a glance
Company (home → host)How it enteredOutcome and main reasons
Target (USA → Canada)Bought 133 pre-existing Zellers stores; opened 124 stores and 3 distribution centres within 10 months.Announced its withdrawal in January 2015. Poorly located inherited stores, supply-chain failure and empty shelves, prices higher than Canadians expected, stiff competition.
Tim Hortons (Canada → USA)Own stores from 1984, plus the 2004 purchase of Best Eaton Donut Flour Company and its 48 restaurants.Stagnant: 27 years to open 500 US stores and an exit from three New England states. A marketing message built on the ‘Canadian angle’, slow and dispersed growth, strong rivals.
Best Buy (USA → China)Bought a stake in Five Star in 2006, later full ownership, then opened nine large flagship stores.Closed its stores in 2011 and later announced the sale of Five Star. Large-store format ignored preferences for small, nearby shops; higher costs and prices than local rivals; Five Star never integrated.
Tesco (UK → USA)Built 199 small Fresh and Easy stores from 2007.Left after 5 years of losses. Bad timing, no coupons and a late loyalty card, a small-store European format, self-service checkouts only, inconvenient locations.
Walmart (USA → Germany)Bought stores from the existing chains Wertkauf and Interspar.Left in 2006 with over $1 billion in losses. Unsuitable locations, strong local discounters with established supplier ties, US practices that did not fit German culture.
Aldo (Canada → USA)Built awareness by supplying shoes to TV shows, then rapidly opened company-owned stores from 1993.Success: low-cost value strategy, one high-profile billboard per city, fast design, a flexible supply chain and localised product assortment.
Carrefour (France → China)Joint venture with a Chinese consulting firm in 1995; slow, concentrated expansion with local partners.Became the largest foreign retailer in China within 10 years: mostly local sourcing, decentralised local management, supplier training, store formats that kept adapting.
Nordstrom (USA → Canada)Own full-line stores in established malls, opened one at a time from 2014.Promising start: followed market research (full stores, not Rack outlets), chose high-income Calgary, overstocked while learning its supply chain, local managers and product mix.

Source: Yoder, Visich and Rustambekov (2016).

Why they failed and why they succeeded

Common causes of failure
  • Did not understand the customer — true of all five.
  • Underestimated competition, including small local businesses such as the butcher and small electronics shops.
  • Poor locations, often inherited by buying existing stores.
  • Growth too fast (Target) or too slow and dispersed (Tim Hortons).
  • Supply-chain problems and bad timing.
Shared success factors
  • Listened to customers and localised products.
  • Controlled, concentrated growth — often deliberately slow.
  • Invested in supply chains: flexible suppliers, local sourcing, supplier training, overstocking.
  • Local managers and local business partners.
  • Top-management commitment and willingness to change strategy.
Insight
The mode alone did not decide the outcome

Walmart and Target were hurt by the poor locations they inherited through buying existing stores, and Carrefour’s joint venture brought local knowledge. But Tesco built its own stores and still failed, while Aldo and Nordstrom succeeded with their own stores. What separated winners from losers was how the mode was executed around customers, locations and supply chains — so every entry-mode justification should also say how the firm will learn the market.

“It is even more critical for small to medium-sized companies to be successful at an international expansion because many times these companies do not have access to extensive financial resources; one mistake could finish the business entirely.”
— Yoder, Visich and Rustambekov (2016)
Use it in your assessment
Using the reading as evidence

In the Individual Report, use a failure and a success to support your adaptations — for example, why you will enter one city first and learn before expanding (Carrefour, Nordstrom), or why you will not buy an existing business (Walmart, Target). Cite Yoder, Visich and Rustambekov (2016).

Tutorial activities

Work through these before checking the guidance.

Case Study Activity 1: Walmart’s failure in Germany

Watch the video case on Walmart’s failure in Germany linked from the tutorial slides (about eight minutes), then discuss in your group. The Kelley reading adds detail on the same case.

  1. 1.What were the main reasons behind Walmart’s failure?
  2. 2.In which area of the PESTEL analysis did Walmart get it wrong?
  3. 3.Reflect on your learning on market entry strategies and explain how you would have approached the German market.

Case Study Activity 2: An entrepreneur’s brave attempt to go international (TNA)

Read Liu (2019) on TNA, a disguised Malaysian maker of women’s prayer outfits that moved from online exports to its own store in Jakarta, and answer the case questions in your group.

  1. 1.What triggered TNA to go international rather than just continuing to export its products to Indonesia?
  2. 2.What challenges did TNA need to address when establishing a store in Indonesia?
  3. 3.What changes happened in TNA’s value chain that enhanced value creation?
  4. 4.What is the rationale behind the entry mode(s) that TNA selected to expand into the Indonesian market?
  5. 5.How can the experiences of TNA be applied to other entrepreneurial ventures?

Case Study 3: Lessons learned from international expansion successes and failures

The tutorial closes with a class discussion of Yoder, Visich and Rustambekov (2016). The slide sets no questions; these prompts follow the structure of the article.

  1. 1.What common causes explain the failures of Target, Tim Hortons, Best Buy, Tesco and Walmart?
  2. 2.What did Aldo, Carrefour and Nordstrom do differently?
  3. 3.How did each company enter its market (acquisition, its own new stores or a joint venture), and did the entry route itself decide the outcome?
  4. 4.Why do the authors say success abroad is even more critical for SMEs, and what should a small firm copy from the successes?
group exercise

Apply it: a market and an entry mode for your Ashoka venture

In Week 7 COIL teams meet to prepare their 5-minute Innovation Pitch video, which proposes a market entry strategy for an Ashoka Fellow venture. Use this week’s tools on your own venture.

  1. 1.Which new market should the venture enter, and which two or three PESTEL factors decide it?
  2. 2.Which entry mode from the slides fits the venture’s resources, and why not the two closest alternatives?
  3. 3.Which Week 1 theory best supports your choice?
  4. 4.Who are the key local partners, and what adaptations will the venture need?

Cases

Full analysis, questions and takeaways on each case page.

Key terms

Market selection
Deciding whether to enter a foreign market by examining its external environment (PESTEL), interpreting the opportunities and threats, and making an informed decision.
Entry mode
The arrangement through which a firm serves a foreign market: exporting, contractual modes, a wholly owned subsidiary or digital entry.
Exporting
Producing goods at home and shipping them to a foreign market; very cost-effective but subject to duties and logistics costs.
Contractual entry modes
The slides’ group of licensing, franchising and joint ventures — entry through agreements with other organisations rather than sole ownership.
Licensing
Granting a foreign firm permission to manufacture your proprietary product in return for royalties or technical fees.
Franchising
Letting independent entrepreneurs use your trademark, business model and operating systems for a fee or royalty.
Joint venture
Two or more organisations with similar interests set up a new business organisation together to achieve a shared objective.
Wholly owned subsidiary
A separate legal entity 100% owned and fully controlled by the parent company.
Greenfield investment
Setting up a wholly owned operation from scratch in the host country, as TNA did in Jakarta.
Direct acquisition
Gaining a wholly owned presence by buying an existing business in the host country, as Walmart did in Germany.
Digital market entry
Serving foreign customers through websites and digital platforms — a virtual rather than physical presence.
Foreign direct investment (FDI)
Investing in operations in another country; the OLI paradigm sets out the conditions for doing so.
Psychic distance
Perceived differences between the home and foreign market, such as culture; central to the Uppsala model and a recurring cause of failure in the Kelley reading.

Check your understanding

10 questions · instant feedback · best score saved on this device
1/10

According to Mini-Lecture 7.1, what is the first step in selecting a foreign market?

Flashcards

Recall first, then flip.
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References and sources

As cited in the module materials. Check each against the original before using it in an assignment.

  • Dunning, J.H. and Lundan, S.M. (2008) Multinational enterprises and the global economy. Edward Elgar Publishing.
  • Hennart, J.F. (2010) ‘Transaction cost theory and international business’, Journal of Retailing, 86(3), pp. 257–269.
  • Johanson and Mattsson (1988) — cited in the Week 1 tutorial; full reference not given in the module materials.
  • Liu, Y. (2019) An entrepreneur’s brave attempt to go international. SAGE Business Cases Originals. SAGE Publications. doi: 10.4135/9781526468963.
  • Vahlne, J.E. and Johanson, J. (2017) ‘From internationalization to evolution: the Uppsala model at 40 years’, Journal of International Business Studies, 48(9), pp. 1087–1102.
  • Yoder, S., Visich, J.K. and Rustambekov, E. (2016) ‘Lessons learned from international expansion failures and successes’, Business Horizons, 59, pp. 233–243. doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2015.11.008.
  • Zucchella, A., Hagen, B. and Serapio, M.G. (2018) International entrepreneurship. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Written from these course files

External pages used