Research On The Internationalization Of The Mining Enterprises Based On The Born Global Theory

In recent years, companies that internationalize at or near their founding, "born globals", are emerging in great numbers world-wide,and are playing an increasing role in international trade,which makes much research on this new phenomenon be conducted. Although born globals (BGs) have now been studied for over a decade, theory and practice are still evolving.At present, the growing trend of mining firm globalization makes it worthwhile to study how to realize the fast internationalization of the mining firms in our country.An inductive and exploratory study and a case study are primarily adopted in this paper. On the basis of a review on literatures, whether BGs exist in the mining sector, and the factors that shaped their international trajectory and performance have been examined by a multiple-case empirical analysis.Firstly, the literature on BGs is used as a basis for drawing up the hypotheses. That is the combinations of the initial strategic orientations, founders or managers holding much global experience, the networks and the unique industrial characteristics can make a firm be born global in some extent.Secondly, 6 BG exploration firms are selected form the TSX venture exchange for case analysis. Furthermore, the characters of the firms, the founders or managers, the oversea performance, the financing environment, the risks and the future performance are discussed with many details.Lastly, a conceptual framework and propositions explaining how the initial strategic orientations, founders or managers and the industrial characteristics influence the birth of exploration BGs are developed.The results indicate that the initial strategic orientations, the founders'or managers'international experiences, the way of acquiring mining properties and the relatively accessible financial resources are effective in directing the first mining activities overseas.