Internationalization of born-digital companies

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the digitalization of the value-chain activities of companies and its impact on the internationalization strategy and international performance of these companies. Literature provides an incomplete image of how value-chain digitalization (upstream and downstream) activities influences the internationalization of companies (both strategy and performance) and provides no understanding regarding the impact of the digitalization degree of the value-chain on the level of internationalization. In addition, most of the research focuses particularly on the downstream activities of the value-chain when analyzing company internationalization, neglecting the upstream aspect; even fewer these papers approach both aspects in relation to internationalization strategy and international performance.

This thesis contributes to the international business literature, international entrepreneurship and international marketing, first, by providing ways to classify international born-digital and digitalized/digitizing companies according to the extent of digitalization of their value-chain activities and the extent of internationalization of the online–offline geographical dispersion of value-chain activities in foreign markets. Second, by extending the discussion on the behavior of BD companies as they strategically approach internationalization efforts, the implications of digitalized valuechain activities (both upstream and downstream) on the international performance of BD companies are discussed. Third, the thesis reveals that BD companies may be expanding their international presence, particularly based on their digitalized upstream value-chain activities, and that in certain cases, there may be an increasing number of performance consequences.

By targeting digitalization of both upstream and downstream processes of the value-chain activities, managers can identify business strategies to expand the potential role of internationalization and improve their company performance.