<p><strong>Problem:</strong> How do the born global firms overcome challenges and sustain performance in international markets through their competences, routines, and corporate governance structure?</p><p><strong>Purpose:</strong> The purpose of this thesis is to explore the competences, routines, and corporate governance structure of born global companies, and understand their role in overcoming challenges of early internationalization and sustaining performance in international markets from early days.</p><p><strong>Method:</strong> This research is conducted as multi-disciplinary, consisting of literature from International Business and Strategic Management. Relevant data is collected through six in-depth interviews with executives of born global companies from Sweden and Norway. Qualitative analysis has been used at data analysis stage.</p><p><strong>Originality: </strong>This study contributes to literature by examining relatively neglected areas of born global companies; competences, routines, and corporate governance structure. It is also original in distilling a wide literature to explore challenges of born globals.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Our research reveals that despite their small size and limited resources, born global companies engage in competence building and leveraging activities, establish early international routines, and construct flexible governance structures to overcome challenges and achieve performance in the global arena.</p>

<p>I den här uppsatsen har vi valt att studera Born Globals vilket är företag som snabbt och i ett tidigt skede expanderar till internationella marknader. Syftet med uppsatsen är att analysera och kritiskt granska i vilken utsträckning Born Globals kan ses som en företeelse med nya och alternativa drivkrafter och förklarande faktorer i relation till mer traditionella internationaliseringsmodeller. För att uppnå syftet har vi valt huvudproblemet, i vilken utsträckning Born Globals internationella expansion skiljer sig från den process de traditionella internationaliseringsmodellerna beskriver, och för att besvara det har vi tillämpat en kvalitativ forskningsmetod.</p><p>Den teoretiska referensramen innefattar en deskription av traditionella modeller för internationalisering samt en redogörelse för Born Globals internationella expansion. Avsnittet om Born Globals innefattar också interna förklarade faktorer och externa drivkrafter som möjliggör företagens tidiga och snabba internationalisering. Den empiriska studien presenteras företagsvis och behandlar respektive företags internationalisering och globala inriktning samt respektive entreprenörs roll och externa drivkrafters betydelse för internationalisering. </p><p>Följande genomförs en analys som grundar sig i den teoretiska referensramen och den empiriska studien. I analysen diskuteras Born Globals internationaliseringsbeteende som visat sig bygga på grundarens och individers kunskap från erfarenhet och relationer, beteendet karaktäriseras av att företagen internationaliserar direkt till avlägsna marknader. Vidare analyseras interna förklarade faktorer och externa drivkrafter till Born Globals beteende.</p><p>I slutsatsen konstateras att Born Globals internationaliseringsbeteende främst kan förklaras genom en kombination av Uppsala- och Nätverksmodellen då det är tydligt att Born Globals internationaliserar inkrementellt likt de traditionella modellerna beskriver att företag gör men kunskap för Born Globals erhålls genom individerna inom företagen. Det har visat sig att ett antal externa drivkrafter har betydelse för Born Globals internationalisering vilka inte tas hänsyn till i de traditionella internationaliseringsmodellerna vilka således inte fullt ut kan förklara Born Globals beteende. Därav konstateras att ett behov att revidera de traditionella modellerna föreligger så att de externa drivkrafter som format dagens samhällsbild inkluderas.</p><p>Avslutningsvis presenteras förslag till fortsatt forskning angående Born Globals internationalisering och rekommendationer för företag som verkar eller ämnar verka på en global marknad.</p>

<p>Svenska Lantchips is a Swedish SME sized snack manufacturer. Being a small, medium sized, family-owned business with branches throughout the world, they make an interesting company for a case study. The case study I have conducted focuses on the internationalisation process of this family owned company – how they, despite their size, find ways to keep up an unique business structure, designed for internationalisation.The aim of this essay is to compare Svenska Lantchips’ internationalisation process with traditional internationalisation theories and see if these are compatible with this company. The theories used are The Uppsala Model, The Network Model, and The Born Global Theory, with The Born Global Theory representing the younger generation of models.After undertaking an in-depth interview with Michael Hansen, business developer at Svenska Lantchips, I collated a substantial amount of material, which I have used as the basis of this essay. Theories of storytelling have been used to interpret the information I got from Michael Hansen. Michael Hansen was chosen not only for his role as a business developer, but he is also the co-founder of the company, together with his wife, and brother in law. Previous research was studied to get information about attitudes within this research field today. The result from this thesis is that Svenska Lantchips have forged their own distinctive route out on the global market. Despite being a relatively small, family-owned company, with a low dependency on sophisticated technologies, they have managed to expand and internationalise at an impressive rate. By opening factories on foreign markets, sometimes even before exporting to them, they have produced a unique competitive advantage. Their internationalisation process at times more closely resembles that of a high-tech, innovative company, than a small, family-owned firm. The driving force behind them is their personal determination, and the philosophy that the world is one big market; they refuse to see cultural and geographical differences as an obstacle.</p>

<p>Historically the research of International Business and the internationalisation of companies have been concentrated to large, mature companies with extensive resources to deploy in new markets. Since the 90’s a big field of research has though been on so called born globals, or international new ventures. In this thesis I will take up where this research is today and I will deal with the issue of new entrepreneurial ventures that internationalise from a very early stage of their existence From the theory five factors are retracted; 1) The Entrepreneur; 2) Identified Opportunities; 3) Entry/ Establishing mode; 4) Deployed Resources and 5) Local Challenges and from this the theoretical model is created. The following empirical study is made on Swedish entrepreneurs that have established in China during the last decade and the model seeks to answer why and how the entrepreneur established in China. The model is constructed to be usable for research on entrepreneurs from any market entering any other market. This specific study on Swedish entrepreneur in China merely fills the function of illustrating the use of the model, as the sample is too small to generalize.</p>

<p>Dissociation dynamics of the ionized molecules HCl and the deuterated system DCl has been studied in gas-phase using synchrotron based photoelectron spectroscopy (PES).</p><p>The inner-valence "(4σ)^-1" photoionization band for DCl and HCl was recorded using maximum resolution in order to probe an interference pattern between a dissociative and a bound electronic state. For HCl⁺, we clearly observed distorted Fano-type peaks even for modest resolution, whereas for DCl⁺, the pattern was hardly discernible. The observation in HCl⁺ has been explained by a coupling between two adiabatic electronic states, where the bound state was populated through non-adiabatic curve-crossing. The nuclear motion of HCl⁺ is too fast for the Born-Oppenheimer approximation to be fully valid in this case. Whereas for DCl⁺, with larger reduced mass and therefore slower nuclear motion, the non-adiabatic coupling is less pronounced, and the vibrational progression vanishes.</p><p>A comparative study between PES and threshold photoelectron spectra (TPES) of the inner-valence bands of HCl and DCl has been performed, showing differences in intensities and shapes of the vibrational bands. These differences were attributed to the fact that the sudden approximation, which can be assumed to be valid for PES, is violated in the case of TPES.</p><p>A resonant Auger electron spectroscopy study of HCl and DCl has been performed, which shows an interference pattern between atomic and molecular Auger- and photoelectron channels. The atomic features are associated with ultra-fast dissociation of the molecules, on the same time scale as the Auger decay. The observation shows that the excited molecular system has to be regarded as a superposition of fragmented and molecular states.</p><p>A study of the <i>X</i>-state of HCl⁺, populated via a core-excited state, shows a selective population of the final state. The explanation was shown to be that the magnetic orientation of the core-hole is transferred to the final state of the molecule.</p><p>A setup for data acquisition of Photo-Electron Photo-Ion Photo-Ion COincidence (PEPIPICO) measurements using a Time-Of-Flight (TOF) spectrometer has been developed. A Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC) card has been linked together with the data treatment program Igor as a user interface. Furthermore, the PEPIPICO spectrometer has been characterized to provide a solid basis for the analysis of experimental data.</p>

M. Tinkham and M.W.P. Strandberg. / "February 1, 1955"--Cover. "Reprinted from The Physical review, vol. 97, no. 4, 937-966, February 15, 1955." / Includes bibliographical references. / Army Signal Corps Contract DA36-039 sc-42607 Project 132B Dept. of the Army Project 3-99-12-022

Contemporary English language arts (ELA) teachers engage students who have been born into a digital world where emergent literacies challenge the traditionally authoritative perspectives and physical boundaries of books and classrooms. This qualitative case study inquired into the classroom experiences of three senior English language arts teachers located in two western Canadian provinces in our digital-based communications age. Analyzed through a cultural studies lens, this inquirys data were collected through the methodological triangulation of classroom observation, semi-structured interview, and online journal responses. The studys findings reveal the significance of the three selected teachers textual stances and pedagogy to their students new literacies in this time of epochal communications and cultural change. A broadening horizon of textual choice and compositional possibilities complicated each of the three teachers classroom practice in a subject area whose content, traditionally, relies upon reading and responding to print-based canonical texts. Each of these teachers was working In medias res to understand which texts and textual practices should be held on to, and which could be relinquished for the benefit of their students language learning. A major concern that emerged for each of these three educators was a perceived loss of deep critical readings by their students. This concern was counter-balanced for the subject area specialists by an emergent understanding of the affordances of a broadening set of texts and textual practices a developing awareness that students critical literacies can emerge in a rhizomal manner, and that teachers and students can co-author their literacy experiences within the (con)text of the ELA classroom. For these three participants, teaching ELA has become an ellipsis in a digital-based age where certain previously privileged texts and a sense of authority need to be relinquished in order to achieve the co-constructed understanding of word and world so valued by these educators and their students. / Secondary Education

The traditional theories developed by Johanson and Vahlne (1977, 1990) and other researchers ofinternationalisation have long been questioned because of the fast-changing environment and deregulations. In particular, for Born Global firms, namely a company that has achieved a foreign sales volume of at least 25% within three years of its inception and that seeks to derive significant competitive advantage from the use of resources and the sales of outputs in multiple countries (Andersson and Wictor, 2003, p. 254), itis a question of surviving by establishing in many markets in a short period of time.This thesis summarises five papers. Paper 1 showed that the CEO´s perception and the fast changing environment push small firms to internationalise and that younger CEOs have an important role in expanding the firm. This is often because of their experiences accumulated inthe organisation over time or because the entrepreneur has been exposed to the international arena and information technologies, which can explain why some small firms continue to expandtheir international activities.The conceptual framework in paper 2 comprises four factors that influence Born Global firms:entrepreneurs, networks, industry and globalisation. To succeed in establishing a global firm it isimportant to have certain resources, such as an entrepreneur with international experience and strong networks. A Born Global entrepreneur is distinguished by his interest and motivation todo business abroad and his vision for the future.Paper 3 focuses on the importance of Born Globals’ foreign market channel strategies. The decision to establish a new market is of great importance for the long-term survival of the company. In this comparative case study, four companies that display different foreign entrymodes are compared. We found that these companies had very different market channel strategies even though they internationalised rapidly.Paper 4 is a study of four companies that indicates that their CEOs are active and involved in making strategic decisions in all parts of a Born Global firm’s value chain activities. Decisions on localisation and outsourcing are influenced by the entrepreneur’s definition of his firm’s core competencies. However, factors outside the firm are also an influence: potential suppliers,outsourcing of manufacturing and potential partners in distribution, especially relating to the riseof new emerging markets (e.g. China). The importance of coordinating value chain activities also influences the localisation of different activities. Entrepreneurs aim to arrange value-creating networks to secure their core manufacturing processes and close relations with local suppliers when they outsource products. In such a case, the entrepreneur can be seen as an orchestrator ina virtual organisation. The ‘global factory’ concept can be adjusted to fit locally for a Born Global company and its environment. Paper 5 focuses on a Born Global company’s way to grow and is a longitudinal study of acompany over 17 years (1990–2007) and its development in the different stages in the growth/life-cycle curve. From inception, the vision is already strong to go global. During thea bove period, the founder, external CEO I and CEO II were interviewed to assess whatcharacterises the different stages of growth over time compared with the growth/life-cycle model of Smallbone and Wyer (2006). The company is still growing and very entrepreneurial. The leadership has changed from a deciding style to a more coaching way of leading. Themanagement and organisation have changed to be more professionalised and team-oriented over8time. Entrepreneurial teams have also become more and more important for transferring knowledge to individuals in the organisation.The traditional models of Johanson and Vahlne (1977, 1990) point out that learning at an organisational level is a main factor in international development over time. However, a way to speed up the development of Born Global firms is entrepreneurial background with long experience and different knowledge serving his vision for the company. Nevertheless, theknowledge transfer from the entrepreneur and his team to the organisation is important. Knight and Cavusgil (2004, p. 137) find that “Born Globals pose an important new challenge to traditional views on the internationalization of the firm”.Johanson and Vahlne (2003) study what happens in companies because of rapid changes in the environment. They suggest that the Uppsala model is still valid, but that the early stage of a firm’sinternationalisation is important to study. Organisational learning is carried out at an individual and an entrepreneurial level. Johanson and Vahlne (1977) focus on the importance of the people working in a market and their learning. In their latest published article by Schweizer et al. (2010,pp. 368–369), they argue that “it is the liability of outsidership rather than the liability offoreignness that gives rise to internationalization difficulties. Outsidership implies that the firm isnot a member of relevant networks. Internationalization can be seen then as taking steps tobecome an insider in relevant networks in focal foreign markets … In their last study it emphasizes the entrepreneurial facets of a firm’s internationalization process”. The above defined background of the entrepreneur, his entrepreneurial way of working and his experience from former jobs also means that he already has the networks necessary for international expansion.The entrepreneur and his team in a Born Global company must from the beginning have the capability and knowledge of the environment and market in a country to establish in the new market as well as the understanding of how to manage the company and organisation. If they do not have this knowledge, they must have a network from which to extract this information. The entrepreneur has to be strongly involved in building and sustaining relationships with both customers and suppliers. In the organisation, he also has to build a powerful culture with decentralisation and empowered employees. The leadership in these companies is charismatic,employees are empowered in their jobs and the teams are entrepreneurial. Employees are therefore also allowed to make their own decisions within certain limits. Networks are important to overcome “perceived barriers on cultural and regulatory issues, those associated with locating partners, plus other matters deemed important to specific management teams” (Crick, 2009, p. 466). Coviello and Cox (2006) find that a company’s network is aresource when it is working with acquisitions and important recruitments. For companies growing over many years such as the Rubber Company studied herein, networks change and the chairman’s networks can be of great importance when core individuals should be recruited as an important part of the company’s strategies.

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Dissociation dynamics of the ionized molecules HCl and the deuterated system DCl has been studied in gas-phase using synchrotron based photoelectron spectroscopy (PES). The inner-valence "(4σ)-1" photoionization band for DCl and HCl was recorded using maximum resolution in order to probe an interference pattern between a dissociative and a bound electronic state. For HCl+, we clearly observed distorted Fano-type peaks even for modest resolution, whereas for DCl+, the pattern was hardly discernible. The observation in HCl+ has been explained by a coupling between two adiabatic electronic states, where the bound state was populated through non-adiabatic curve-crossing. The nuclear motion of HCl+ is too fast for the Born-Oppenheimer approximation to be fully valid in this case. Whereas for DCl+, with larger reduced mass and therefore slower nuclear motion, the non-adiabatic coupling is less pronounced, and the vibrational progression vanishes. A comparative study between PES and threshold photoelectron spectra (TPES) of the inner-valence bands of HCl and DCl has been performed, showing differences in intensities and shapes of the vibrational bands. These differences were attributed to the fact that the sudden approximation, which can be assumed to be valid for PES, is violated in the case of TPES. A resonant Auger electron spectroscopy study of HCl and DCl has been performed, which shows an interference pattern between atomic and molecular Auger- and photoelectron channels. The atomic features are associated with ultra-fast dissociation of the molecules, on the same time scale as the Auger decay. The observation shows that the excited molecular system has to be regarded as a superposition of fragmented and molecular states. A study of the X-state of HCl+, populated via a core-excited state, shows a selective population of the final state. The explanation was shown to be that the magnetic orientation of the core-hole is transferred to the final state of the molecule. A setup for data acquisition of Photo-Electron Photo-Ion Photo-Ion COincidence (PEPIPICO) measurements using a Time-Of-Flight (TOF) spectrometer has been developed. A Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC) card has been linked together with the data treatment program Igor as a user interface. Furthermore, the PEPIPICO spectrometer has been characterized to provide a solid basis for the analysis of experimental data.