Abstract
International trade in services worldwide has seensignificant growth in recent years (Pla-Barber & Ghauri, 2012), with anincreasing number of smaller service firms undertaking international businessactivities (Wentrup, 2016). For such firms, the individual decision-maker hasbeen recognised as particularly influential for international growth (e.g.Glavas, et al, 2019). For instance, explanations of business growth in the internationalbusiness literature have emphasised the role of resources, such as knowledge,held by key decision-makers (e.g. Clarke,Tamaschke, & Liesch, 2013), while the international entrepreneurshipliterature has specifically highlighted the important role of individual-level characteristics,such as emotions (e.g. Grégoire, Cornelissen,Dimov, & Burg, 2015), which have been identified as an importantsource of information (e.g. Fodor & Pintea, 2017), particularly fordecision-making. This finding suggests that the level of the individual is animportant consideration yet, nascent research into service internationalisationhas ignored the individual, instead focusing on firm-level outputs, forinstance (e.g. Turunen & Nummela, 2017).As a result, little is known about how service entrepreneurs may manage keypsychological processes (i.e., emotion regulation) for decision-making during internationalgrowth (e.g. Zahra, Korri, & Yu, 2005).This is surprising, given the effective management of emotions is important forfirm outcomes (Baron, 2008; Shepherd, Williams, & Patzelt, 2015 ) and on processesregarding opportunity recognition, exploitation and decision-making (Delgado García, Quevedo Puente, & BlancoMazagatos, 2015; Fodor & Pintea, 2017).
It is unclear which emotionregulation strategies may be important for entrepreneurs, particularly givenincreasing levels of complexity in service-dominant settings (Gebauer et al.2005, 2013). Operating in environments characterised by uncertainty and changehas been empirically linked to emotion-rich responses (e.g. Larsen &McGraw, 2011), yet it is unclear whether the emotion regulation strategies thatare important for service-oriented firms are the same as those forgoods-oriented firms. Such strategies are suspected to be different becausetraditional international business activities, such as market entries and exits(e.g. Coviello, 2017), may not accurately depict the situations encountered byservice entrepreneurs when their firms’ cross-national borders, particularly asfirm boundaries are more fluid in digital-enabled environments (Nambisan,2017). Thus, while research suggests increased potential for service firms toexploit opportunities offered by digital-enabled environments (e.g. McKinsey,2017), it has yet to be determined how service firms are pursuing internationalopportunities (cf. Reuber & Fischer, 2011), or how the entrepreneurs at theforefront of such firms are making these key decisions. These findings point toa pressing need for further research in service dominated digital-enabledenvironments.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | SERVSIG Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 9/07/20 |
Publication status | Published - 2 Sep 2020 |