A Study Of The Speed Of Internationalization Of Firms Based On Environmental Uncertainty

Traditional conceptions of the internationalization process usually focus on internationalization behavior through a static perspective,focusing more on the degree of internationalization or resource commitment of firms,ignoring the role of the concept of time in the internationalization process and failing to clarify the essence of the dynamic process of firm internationalization.This dissertation focuses on the speed of internationalization in the context of rapid internationalization of Chinese firms and incorporates the time dimension into the study of the internationalization process of firms.Through field research,it is found that environmental uncertainty is becoming one of the important drivers of firms’ internationalization strategies.At the same time,although the relationship between organization and environment has been studied for a long time,the studies on the speed of internationalization have mainly considered the speed of internationalization at the level of managers and executive teams within the organization and at the organizational level,as well as the level or distance of the institutional environment in the external environment of the organization,ignoring the impact of organizational environmental uncertainty on the speed of internationalization.In fact,environmental uncertainty is the most salient feature of a firm’s external environment and is central to understanding the relationship between an organization and its external environment.Therefore,in order to continue the research on the factors influencing the speed of internationalization and to fill this gap in the existing research,this dissertation explores the relationship between environmental uncertainty and the speed of internationalization through three sub-studies based on strategy tripod perspective.Strategy tripod is a comprehensive framework and a combination of three main perspectives,namely,resource-based view,industry-based view and institution-based view,which can more comprehensively explain the strategic behavior of firms.It is especially suitable for exploring complex issues such as internationalization.At the same time,environmental uncertainty,as a widespread concept,also needs to be conceptualized and measured by multi-dimensional methods.Therefore,based on institution-based view,industry-based view and resource-based view,the environmental uncertainty is analyzed from three aspects:the institutional environment uncertainty,the task environment(industry environment)uncertainty and archival environmental uncertainty reflected by firms in the three sub-studies of this dissertation.First,this dissertation reviews relevant studies on strategy tripod perspective,environmental uncertainty and the internationalization of firms to sort out the gaps in existing studies,and raises research questions combined with the current practical and theoretical background.Second,this dissertation uses Chinese A-share manufacturing listed firms from 2010 to 2019 as research samples to test the research hypotheses,carries out benchmark regression through fixed-effect model,further controls potential sampleselection bias through Heckman’s two-step model,and controls endogenous problems in combination with one-year lagged independent variables.After that,a series of robustness tests such as the replacement of variables’ measurements are used to further verify the robustness of the empirical results.The first sub-study focuses on institutional environment uncertainty,examines the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and the speed of internationalization based on institution-based view and institutional escapism theory,and examines the moderating effect of the home-country regional marketization level on the relationship.It is found that there is a positive relationship between home-country economic policy uncertainty and the speed of internationalization,and a negative relationship between worldwide economic policy uncertainty and the speed of internationalization.The increase of worldwide economic policy uncertainty weakens the positive relationship between home-country economic policy uncertainty and the speed of internationalization.At the same time,the home-country regional marketization level plays a moderating role on the relationship,and the increase of the marketization level of the home country weakens the positive relationship between home-country economic policy uncertainty and the speed of internationalization.It also weakens the negative relationship between worldwide economic policy uncertainty and the speed of internationalization.The second sub-study focuses on task environment(industry environment)uncertainty,and analyzes two dimensions:home-country industry environmental munificence and dynamism,based on industry-based view,and examines the moderating role of firms’ market power on it.It is found that the increase of home country industry environmental munificence reduces the speed of internationalization;the increase of home-country industry environmental dynamism increases the speed of internationalization;at the same time,market power plays a moderating role in the relationship between home-country industry environmental munificence and the speed of internationalization,and the improvement of firm market power enhances the negative impact of home-country industry environmental munificence on the speed of internationalization.However,the market power of the firm has no significant moderating effect on the relationship between home-country industry environmental dynamism and the speed of internationalization.The third sub-study focuses on the archival environmental uncertainty reflected by firms,and analyzes the relationship between the archival environmental uncertainty reflected by firms and the speed of internationalization based on the resource-based view and resource dependence theory,and also examines the moderating role of firms’tangible and intangible resources(financial slack resources,internal knowledge resources and executive internationalization experience).It is found that the increase of archival environmental uncertainty reflected by firms increases the speed of firm internationalization;at the same time,financial slack resources,internal knowledge resources and executive internationalization experience moderate this relationship.The increase of firm slack resources,internal knowledge resources and executive internationalization experience enhances the positive impact of the increase of archival environmental uncertainty reflected by firms on the speed of internationalization.Finally,this dissertation makes a summary from two aspects:theoretical contribution and practical enlightenment.Through the strategy tripod perspective,a comprehensive theoretical framework suitable for the study of complex issues,this dissertation explores the environmental uncertainty and the speed of internationalization of firms from three aspects:institution-based view,industry-based view and resourcebased view,echoing the call for the application of strategy tripod to overcome the limitations of a single perspective,so as to provide more in-depth insight for the study of complex phenomena such as internationalization.Meanwhile,from the context of rapid internationalization of Chinese firms,this dissertation analyzes the speed of internationalization considering the time dimension from a dynamic perspective,adds the influence of environmental factors to the study of the antecedent variables of the speed of internationalization,providing a multidimensional perspective for the study of environmental uncertainty,and to some extent expands and complements the research related to the speed of internationalization and environmental uncertainty.It also provides a basis for policy-makers to take measures to help firms deal with environmental uncertainty reasonably,and provides some reference for firms to deal with multi-dimensional environmental uncertainty through internationalization strategies.