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The aim of this paper is to enhance our knowledge on how executive expectation affect the firm’s internationalisation process, namely, by offering explanations to sudden major investments/ divestments that deviate the process from commonly presumed incrementality. The theoretical view developed in this study is founded upon Johanson and Vahlne’s (1977) internationalisation process model and complemented with the concept of executive expectation. Through a longitudinal comparative case study, enriched with archival data and interviews, this paper emphasises the dynamics of the firm’s internationalisation process. This aids to provide some answers on how changes in the composition of executives, such as the replacement of key personnel, can drive the firm’s internationalisation process into a different path when succeeding executives do not share similar expectations to their predecessors.

This paper focuses on financial (bank) firms’ internationalization. We utilize and integrate literature from international dynamic marketing capability with business network theory. Financial firms in their internationalization quest need to offer competitive services to local customers but local regulations, lack of knowledge of local culture, and language, and other business-level obstacles such as the lack of knowledge about customers and the competitive environment of the target market hamper the path to be able to do so. Therefore, this paper aims to explore how a firm develops international dynamic marketing capability and penetrates foreign markets and networks by absorbing local capabilities into their organization. Based on qualitative case study research. We found that the focal firm already has different marketing capabilities but utilizing their business networks also can absorb local capabilities that enhance their international dynamic marketing capability and penetrate foreign networks. 

Purpose – This study aims to hypothesize that the implementation of information technology (IT) in industrial business relationships entails bothpositive and negative effects for the relationship’s continuation. The purpose is to study the digitalization of business relationships with a focus oneffects on commitment in context with uncertainty and cooperation.

Design/methodology/approach – Hypotheses are tested with data from 353 customer relationships in the industrial market. The model suggeststhe impact of IT on business relationship commitment.

Findings – The results show that IT use in industrial relationships has a direct impact on commitment, as well as an indirect effect via uncertaintyand cooperation, which both can increase as a result of IT use. When IT use increases uncertainty, it negatively impacts commitment, and when itincreases cooperation, the effect on commitment is positive.

Research limitations/implications – IT use in industrial relationships has a direct impact on commitment, as well as an indirect effect viauncertainty and cooperation, which both can increase as a result of IT use. When IT use increases uncertainty, it negatively impacts commitment,and when it increases cooperation, the effect on commitment is positive.

Practical implications – Awareness of the effect of IT use and the factors involved entails working with cooperative activities to counteract thenegative impact there may be if the IT leads to increased uncertainty. Companies need to have knowledge regarding the effect of IT use in each oftheir business relationships to manage them according to their given situation.

Originality/value – This study contributes to industrial marketing by demonstrating that digitalization can increase uncertainty and cooperation(differently), and they have different effects on commitment, thus that there is a “bright,” as well as “dark” side to it, evident in the businessrelationship dynamics.

This paper seeks to contribute to the literature on consumers’ online purchasing behavior as an international phenomenon. Specifically, to address consumers’ Internet skills, website perceived ease of use, and website trust as antecedents of purchase intent. With a crossnational dataset of 788 consumers from different countries, five hypotheses are tested, and a model is suggested. The findings highlight that consumers’ Internet skills and website perceived ease of use positively impact purchase intent. Interestingly, trust in the website does not. To overcome the cases where consumers feel a lack of trust, this study highlights the need for website usability and adapting to consumers’ Internet skills. The findings also illustrate that online shopping is a global phenomenon, a finding that was made possible by analyzing a large international dataset. Future studies can benefit from an online international purchasing approach, which takes the internationality of consumers’ purchasing into account.

Consumers shop increasingly on-line without thinking of national borders. This circumstancehighlights the need to increase the understanding of consumers’ cross-national purchasing and e-commerce. This study focuses on consumers’ online purchasing behaviour, studying consumers’ internet skills, website perceived ease of use and web-trust as antecedents of purchase intent. By analysing a cross-national data set of 788 consumers from different countries, the results show that consumers which make online-purchases are skilled internet- users. Moreover, the lack of trust that consumers may feel when making online-purchases, canbe lessened by a website’s perceived ease of use. The results have implications for future studiesabout e-commerce as an international phenomenon.

Constrained by both domestic and foreign regulations, Swedish banks’ operations have historically primarily occurred in Sweden (Engwall 1992). National regulations only allowed minor operations in foreign markets, whilst internationally, other countries did not permit foreign banking ventures. The Swedish banks’ choices and possibilities for internationalisation were clearly constrained. Since the 1990s conditions have changed due to foreign and domestic deregulation, allowing Swedish banks to broaden their foreign ownership and expand internationally, often following their corporate customers to global markets (Marquardt 1994). To deepen our understanding on banks’ internationalisation, this chapter seeks to explore how their relationships with existing and potential corporate customers and, in turn, their business network, might influence the internationalisation process.

Commitment in the internationalization process model (IP-model) is challenged by the search for knowledge through experience and interactions. Critics opposing this logic even forced the founder of the model to call for the need for integration of other elements in order to understand irregular behaviour like rapid internationalization, loss of commitment and market exit. Aligned with this call, the paper raises the question of how the IP-model can be applied to analyse both regular/incremental and irregular/non-incremental behaviour of the firms. To reach an answer, the paper proposes a theoretical view by adding expectation and unknown uncertainty to the IP-model and examines this in a case study. The contribution is a further development of the IP-model by merging these two concepts that provide tools for understanding irregular behaviour. The paper analyses a Swedish firm's internationalization in different foreign markets for the period of 1995-2009. Conclusions support the understanding of how the model can describe regular incremental and irregular non-incremental commitment behaviour.

This study examines four major Swedish banks' internationalization process patterns during the period 1961-2010. The study complements earlier studies by also considering the banks' levels of market commitment. One objective is to determine if 'Tit for tat'-behaviour seen in earlier studies of Swedish banks still prevails after the deregulation. Adding to earlier studies, this study also considers the level of market activities and commitments. A secondary purpose is to examine how the financial crisis has affected the banks with reference to the banks' internationalization patterns. The empirical study is based on archival data on the studied banks' foreign operations. The results show that the banks' behaviour follows 'Tit for tat'-behaviour but that the internationalization has accelerated after the deregulation, hence being carried out with 'big steps' rather than small steps. The analysis also shows that the mimetic behaviour is complemented by other types of internationalization behaviours. The differences in bank internationalization also mean that the effect of a financial crisis varies depending on how the banks have internationalized.

Studies of banks’ internationalization are few, particularly of Swedish banks’ and studies holding a process view of internationalization. This is surprising considering the fact that banks’ have an incredibly important role in our societies. Furthermore, the Swedish banks have until recently been restricted from internationalizing. However today the four largest Swedish banks have all become multinational. The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the two Swedish banks Handelsbanken and Swedbank’s internationalization process between the years 1995-2010. This achieved by covering all relevant foreign markets that the banks are active in during their internationalization process in a longitudinal cross-case study based on archival sources (i.e. newspaper articles, press releases and annual reports). The analytical framework is constructed from behavioral theories and follows a process view of firms’ internationalization by applying the concepts of market commitment, market knowledge and expectation. Latterly firms’ expectation is included to take the future dimension into account in understanding firms’ internationalization behavior.

Conclusions made in this thesis show that the banks internationalization process has some semblances but otherwise they show completely different internationalization behaviors. The study shows that firms’ internationalization process is bound to what the firm will expect of the future and that this expectation is very different based on what knowledge the firm has and its experience. Furthermore the study evidences through empirical findings that the internationalization process of firms’ is also strongly related to the state of the market, i.e. stable or unstable.

Studier av bankers internationalisering är relativt få i sitt omfång, särskilt om svenska banker och studier med en teoretisk process vy över internationalisering. Det här är ganska överraskande med tanke på hur viktiga bankerna är i vårt samhälle. Samtidigt var det inte särskilt länge sedan som bankerna var reglerade från att internationalisera medan de idag fyra stora svenska bankerna samtliga har blivit multinationella. Därför är syftet med denna avhandling är att beskriva och analysera de två svenska bankerna Handelsbanken och Swedbanks internationaliserings process mellan åren 1995 och 2010. Studien följer samtliga relevanta marknader som bankerna är aktiva i under deras internationalisering process genom två longitudinella fallstudier baserad på arkiv data (framför allt tidningsartiklar, pressmeddelanden och årsredovisningar). Det analytiska ramverket är grundat på beteendeteorier och följer bankernas internationalisering ur en process vy med koncepten marknadsåtagande, marknadskunskap och förväntningar. Den senare är inkluderat i syfte att fånga in den framtida dimensionen påverkan på företags internationaliserings beteende.

Slutsatser som görs i avhandlingen är t.ex. att bankernas internationaliseringsprocess har sina likheter i vissa aspekter men är ändå helt olika i deras internationaliseringsbeteende. Studien visar att företags internationaliseringsprocess är bunden till vad företagen förväntar sig av framtiden och att denna förväntning kan se väldigt olika ut beroende på vilka kunskaper och erfarenheter företaget besitter. Därutöver gör studien det empiriska upptäckten att företags internationaliserings process är starkt beroende på marknadstillståndet, d.v.s. om det är stabilt eller instabilt.

In this chapter one of few studies made of banks’ internationalization process in emerging markets, focusing on behaviour relating to the political environment is presented. Aiming to understand banks’ behaviour in the Russia, an analytical framework built on the internationalization process model incorporating the impact of political environment is developed. The empirical data in the chapter concern Sweden’s four largest banks’ expansion into the Russian market and is presented in form of an long- itudinal cross-case study with secondary data between years 1990 and 2010, collected retrospectively. The secondary data consist of newspaper articles, annual reports and press releases. Findings show that in stable periods, Swedish banks have followed the pattern of the internationalization process model when expanding into the Russian market. In periods of instability, the banks’ behaviour is heterogenic and can be opportunistic or cautious.