Early Internationalization: A Meta-Analysis of Antecedents, Dimensions, and Performance

More than three decades after Oviatt and McDougall’s pioneering 1994 paper “Towards a theory of international new ventures,” the study of early internationalizing firms continues to captivate international business scholars. The research questions we address involve the antecedents of early internationalization, the dimensions of this phenomenon and its performance outcomes. In the present study we include all three issues in a comprehensive meta-analysis, thereby gaining a more complete understanding of the early internationalization process, while building upon the various, partial pathways identified in extant research. We use meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) and build upon 426 samples from 378 empirical studies. We distinguish between the effects of individual-level and firm-level antecedents on the main dimensions of early internationalization—speed, scope, and intensity—and we assess the impact thereof on post-entry performance. Our results provide a comprehensive overview of the constructs used in prior research, thereby laying the foundation for future empirical studies on early internationalization.