The purpose of this paper is to investigate the social-cognitive antecedents of an entrepreneur’s internationalization intent and a firm’s behavior. Building on the insights of social-cognitive psychology, the author develops a conceptual model linking an entrepreneur’s positive orientation, self-efficacy beliefs, internationalization intent and actual behavior of the firm.
The author tests this model with a sample of 310 Polish firms (including 241 domestic and 69 international new ventures), drawing on data collected first in 2006 and then in 2007.
The author finds that self-efficacy mediates between positive orientation and internationalization intent, and that an entrepreneur’s internationalization intent predicts a firm’s behavior (i.e. foreign market entry). Moreover, firm age moderates the relationship between an entrepreneur’s positive orientation and internationalization propensity among new ventures.
Overall, the findings demonstrate that social-cognitive theory is useful in predicting new venture internationalization.
Based on the findings, the author recommends that managerial education in international management combines the development of “formal” skills and cross-cultural competencies with experiential and vicarious learning.
The study combines insights from psychology and international business, thus responding to numerous calls for a more interdisciplinary and cognition-oriented focus on the international behavior of firms.
