Page 161 - GLOBAL STRATEGIC MARKETING

6 International Market Entry Strategies

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this unit you should be able to:

• Identify alternative market entry options available to organisations

• Realise different levels of control, risk and involvement

• Identify different market entry options.

6.1 Introduction

Internationalisation has been defined ‘the process of adapting companies
operations (strategy, structure and resources) to international
environments’ (Calof and Beamish, 1995, p. 116). Beamish et al. (1997)

have also defined internationalisation as ‘the process by which companies
increase their awareness of the influence of international activities on their

future, and establish and conduct transactions with companies from other
countries’. Internationalisation strategy, which considers the choice of
entry mode, has also been widely used to explain a company’s resource

commitment in the overseas market (Welch and Luostarinen, 1988;
Terpstra and Sarathy, 2000). The above definitions agree on the idea that

‘internationalisation’ means the movement of a company’s products and/or
services to a country other than its original home market or base of
operations. This unit discusses the internationalisation process. The unit

investigates the main decisions to go international, reviewing the theories
that relate to entry modes. ‘Born global’ firms are investigated further on

the basis of entry modes. The unit also investigates the degree of
involvement, commitment and risk in international markets and the
definition of entry modes (Doole and Lowe, 2008).

6.2 The Process of internationalisation

Researchers indicate that the process of internationalisation starts from

very low engagement leading to high engagement overseas. This is
reflected in the increase in resource and market commitment, and different