What makes an internationalizing firm entrepreneurial?

Abstract Zahra et al. (2024) argue that prior research has insufficient understanding of the entrepreneurial nature of internationalization. To address this, they integrate theories from management and international business to develop a firm-level typology that incorporates (1) the degree of radicalness of the firm’s entrepreneurial behavior and (2) the firm’s level of foreign market commitment. We advance these efforts by proposing that, to understand what makes an internationalizing firm entrepreneurial, researchers will also benefit from direct insights from entrepreneurship research. We retain Zahra et al.’s (2024) behavioral focus in our arguments but shift attention to the individuals that guide the firm’s pursuit of international opportunity, regardless of whether the firm is a new venture or an MNE. We also argue that, when compared to typologies, a process-based perspective is better suited to both differentiating firms and to understanding and explaining the dynamic nature of entrepreneurial internationalization behavior and outcomes.