Actions, actors, strategies and growth trajectories in international entrepreneurship

This article reviews the evolutionary trends of a few concepts with significant theoretical and operational impacts on entrepreneurial enterprises and their internationalization experience over time. It will draw and builds on the discussion of issues that have appeared in the journal already. Recent research findings, however, necessitate revisiting some of them for developing a deeper understanding and stimulate further discussion when necessary. Although the scholarly discussion of international entrepreneurship (IE) as a field of scholarly inquiry emerged in the 1980s (Morrow 1988) and has been evolving over the past three decades, the historical records show that prominent European family firms were involved in international trade before Christianity. Furthermore, the description of actual entrepreneurs travelling from China to Central Europe, and vice versa, dates back to more than 3000 years ago (Etemad 2004a, 2013). One would, therefore, expect perfect clarity in all aspects and concept in the field by now, but some basic concepts still remain unclear, which in turn call for further discussion to gain higher clarity and stronger consensus in the field. This article will, therefore, attempt to highlight a selected list of such issues, briefly examine their evolutionary paths, place them in the context of the recent developments and empirical findings and present suggestions for their further developments toward higher conceptual and consensual clarity.

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