New venture internationalization as strategic renewal

This conceptual paper is concerned with exploratory innovation efforts undertaken by new ventures with a view to achieving internationalization outcomes. The literature appears to overlook the prospect that even in technology-intensive sectors, new ventures may possess, at the outset, a product offering that is not fully conducive for international market entry and yet may detect opportunities for achieving international growth. Thus a two-fold challenge may exist – first, to develop a more suitable offering for international markets and second, to internationalize. A useful way of holistically conceptualizing the phenomenon is as a manifestation of strategic renewal. It is argued that bridging social capital derived through non-redundant ties with dissimilar actors could facilitate strategic renewal. The relational and cognitive dimensions of bridging social capital may be hard to develop but are potentially very important facilitators of this process.