Determinants of born global firm growth in the apparel industry: A Korean case

摘要

Internationalization process theory views internationalization as an incremental process that develops after a period of domestic maturation and growth. However, recent studies on born global firms prove the limitation of this theory. A born global is defined as "the firm that is heavily involved in exporting at inception or shortly after establishment" (Knight, G. A. and Cavusgil, S. T., 1996. The born global firms: A challenge to traditional internationalization theory, Adv. Int. Mark., 8, 11-26; Rennie, M. W., 1993. Global competitiveness: Born global, McKinsey Q., 4, 45-52). In developing countries, most apparel firms have the nature of born global, using labor-intensive operations. However, they often fail to maintain growth, and determinants of the growth remain largely unanswered. Among many potential factors, this study regards entrepreneur characteristics as more critical than others in explaining the growth. This study chose South Korea as its focus since this country underwent the initial born global stage in the 1970s. Using extensive literature reviews and interviews with field experts, this study suggests propositions that explain the influence of entrepreneur characteristics on born global firm international growth after inception.