Current theoretical insights into firm internationalisation have mainly focused on large American multinationals or on smaller early internationalising firms. Global niche players, often competing alongside or even complementary, have been less researched. They, like larger players, often strive to go global and dominate their market segments simply to survive and endure processes of global consolidation and often it is necessary to achieve top global positions. One such successful global niche strategy variant is ‘Global Hidden Champions’ (GHCs), which are low profile, global top three under US$ 5 billion firms, mainly found in Germany (Simon, 2012). The question becomes pressing: how do GHCs reach world market leadership? This study seeks to identify through which internationalisation paths and associated market entry modes 30 GHCs investigated from Germany and Britain reached global dominance and the specific competitive advantages without which such strategies would not have succeeded. This thesis takes an evolutionary historic perspective by distinguishing enduring with less-enduring GHCs, established at various points in time between 1838 and 2007. A qualitative multiple case study approach is used based on 30 cases, 15 from each country. The abductive stance facilitates deductions of existing theoretical frameworks, whilst also allowing exploratory new themes to emerge. Structured and semi-structured interviews, combined with documentation, allow triangulation of findings and help minimise bias. Guided by the conceptual framework, data has been thematically coded, analysed and systematically explored, allowing several new themes to emerge. Not one single GHC was found pursuing the traditional Uppsala Model internationalisation path. Instead 43% were identified as Born Globals (BGs); 20% as Born-Again Globals (BAGs); but no less than 37% emerged as quite different hybrid internationalisers, which because of their quite distinctive traits, were denoted ‘Re- Born-Again Globals’ (Re-BAGs). The analysis involved innovative methodological analysis, which further clarified some partial overlap of BGs, BAGs, and re-BAGs with Uppsala Model features, yet decided differences in terms of tempo and direction. All three alternative paths led to top three global market leadership positions, depending on the GHCs context and historical circumstances. Nevertheless, recently established GHCs pursued BG paths, whereas more enduring GHCs almost all followed BAG and re-BAG paths. Younger British GHCs frequently embarked on early proactive paths, whilst their more enduring German equivalents pursued more belated internationalisation routes. History emerged as pivotal. BAGs and re-BAGs were both distinguished by critical incidents which, in all 17 cases, shifted strategies on to much more proactive internationalisation paths. German GHCs, though, shifted primarily in response to technology advances, whereas British GHCs typically responded to specific management appointments. Literature on accelerated internationalisation paths, such as in relation to BGs, remains unclear on commitments beyond trade. Yet, 90% of GHCs deployed substantial foreign direct investment (FDI), in addition to mere trade activity. Initially, German GHCs grew organically focusing on neighbouring markets. In contrast, British GHCs often used acquisitions and targeted more global, in particular, Commonwealth markets. FDI thus emerged as a crucial addition to export activity in all three alternative paths followed by BGs, BAGs and re-BAGs enabling them to sustain leading global market positions. Yet, such paths were in turn contingent upon competitive advantages. GHCs from both countries complied remarkably closely with 6 out of 8 of Simon’s (2009) identified theoretical HC Model traits: being ‘leadership with ambitious goals’; ‘innovation’; ‘high-performance employees’; ‘closeness to customer’; ‘globalisation’, and ‘focus’. More in depth, albeit exploratory, analysis further uncovered the critical role played by ‘visions and values’ and ‘brand’, leading to a new tentative theoretical GHC Model. This new Model, moreover, recognises a virtuous cycle of market leadership advantages from which more enduring GHCs particularly benefitted. It also integrates comfortably with Teece’s (2014) model of dynamic capabilities, extending his framework by including market leadership approaches and more precise competitive advantages of the GHC Model, alongside more specific concepts relating to entrepreneurial orientation. In summary, this study contributes to the knowledge of how both long-standing and newer German and British GHCs conquer global markets by unveiling their specific and successful internationalisation paths, market entry mode choices and their underlying competitive advantages.

<p>The term of Hidden Champions was first put forward by Simon (1996a) in his book and has already been a well-studied subject all over the world. The purpose of this dissertation is to figure out what are the main factors underlying Chinese Hidden Champions. </p><p>The literature part is composed of earlier research on Hidden Champions and theories on several factors that have been identified by authors, which form an analytical framework for analyzing empirical data.</p><p>Conducting a qualitative approach, the empirical data was collected through semi-structured telephone interviews with the senior personnel of two Chinese companies. Secondary data, such as public reports, also played a complementary role.</p><p>The findings of this study showed the factors of clear goal, excellent entrepreneur, focused strategy, sustained innovation, globalization and customer orientation immensely affect the success of Chinese Hidden Champions. It was also pointed out that there remain some views that are different from concepts of Simon’s.</p>

The term of Hidden Champions was first put forward by Simon (1996a) in his book and has already been a well-studied subject all over the world. The purpose of this dissertation is to figure out what are the main factors underlying Chinese Hidden Champions. The literature part is composed of earlier research on Hidden Champions and theories on several factors that have been identified by authors, which form an analytical framework for analyzing empirical data. Conducting a qualitative approach, the empirical data was collected through semi-structured telephone interviews with the senior personnel of two Chinese companies. Secondary data, such as public reports, also played a complementary role. The findings of this study showed the factors of clear goal, excellent entrepreneur, focused strategy, sustained innovation, globalization and customer orientation immensely affect the success of Chinese Hidden Champions. It was also pointed out that there remain some views that are different from concepts of Simon’s.

SEW refers to the stock of affect-related values that an owning family derives from its family business. As a promising theoretical concept, the SEW has been used widely to explain the diverse strategic choices of family firms compared to non-family firms. However, little study has been done to measure SEW directly and to measure the effect of SEW on family firms’ strategic choices.     Within the context of family-owned Hidden Champions, this thesis study replicates the five-dimension model proposed by Berrone et al. in an empirical study to verify the psychometric measurement on the degree of SEW. Furthermore, internationalization has been chosen as an example to demonstrate the effects of SEW on family firms’ strategic choices and outcomes.   This study has verified the reliability and validity of the SEW scale and SEW’s five subscales constructed. Furthermore, the measurement on SEW and its five dimensions has been applied to examine the effects of SEW and its five dimensions on the internationalization of family firms. The findings reveal that SEW has a negative effect on the internationalization of family firms, which is mainly due to the negative effect of Family Control and Influence.

Submitted by Malte Nowack (malte.nowack@gmail.com) on 2014-10-09T21:14:35Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Malte Nowack FGV_VF.docx: 327906 bytes, checksum: 9050c7cb1fba28803c864ea2ab332798 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by JOANA MARTORINI (joana.martorini@fgv.br) on 2014-10-10T12:05:14Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Malte Nowack FGV_VF.docx: 327906 bytes, checksum: 9050c7cb1fba28803c864ea2ab332798 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-10T12:25:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Malte Nowack FGV_VF.docx: 327906 bytes, checksum: 9050c7cb1fba28803c864ea2ab332798 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-12 / We examine the drivers behind the establishment mode choice of German multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the sectors of Automotive, Chemicals and Mechanical Engineering in Brazil for the years 1993-2013 using a novel sample of primary data obtained directly from German MNEs. Based on prevalent theories found in the literature, we test the most common hypotheses on our sample. Firms with high R&D activities and firms with prior market knowledge in Brazil in from of previous sales offices are more likely to enter Brazil by a Greenfield investment. We also show that it is the specific private ownership of the German so-called hidden champions that drive those specific SMEs to enter Brazil by Greenfield, a sneaking suspicion that has been made before. Finally, we show that the establishment mode choice between Brazil and the USA only deviates to a low extent, with German MNEs preferring to enter Brazil by Greenfield and the USA by M&A. Thereby, we provide valuable insights for future research in this field.

Purpose - Given the existing obstacles to succeed with the front end of innovation, and the possibility to learn from the operations of hidden champions with their relative high rate of success in the market, this study aims to investigate how Nordic small and medium-sized hidden champions manage their front end of innovation. Method - The study is a multiple case study that uses an exploratory approach. A total of 19 interviews were conducted in two waves and across eleven organizations from the Nordic region. The collected data was analyzed through a thematic analysis. Findings - The thematic analysis resulted in two themes: Innovation Management and Stakeholder Management, that each centralize on different aspects managed. Central to the findings was the involvement of customers and external organizations into the front end of the innovation process. The findings built the foundation to a framework on enabling factors for the front end of innovation and thereby how other organizations should improve their front end of innovation. Moreover, a process framework is also presented which conceptualizes how organizations should operate their front end of innovation efforts. Theoretical contribution - This study adds to the literature by providing insights on how hidden champions manage their front end of innovation, confirming findings from other regions and adding to existing literature on the importance of involving customers in the front end of innovation process. Moreover, the study conceptualizes the factors that enable hidden champions to succeed in their front end of innovation. Managerial contribution - This study provides an overview of how managers can structure their front end of innovation process to increase the chances of successful innovation management. Limitations and future research - This study focuses on small and medium-sized hidden champions, thus the generalizability of this study may not apply to larger organizations. Therefore future research is proposed for large hidden champions to examine if the findings in this study are applicable for them. This study also examines hidden champions in a B2B context, therefore future research should be conducted regarding hidden champions in B2C to examine the applicability of our findings in that field.

In economic geography, a main research focus is on the relationship between innovation and space. Based on the observations of spatially clustered innovative activities in urban environments, a central argument is that the exchange of innovation-relevant knowledge across firms and other actors as well as the accompanying learning processes are promoted through geographical proximity. Agglomerations are said to offer multiple advantages, e.g. through frequent face-to-face contacts and opportunities for intense collaboration, a common labour pool and shared institutions. From this perspective, a location in large urban environments is beneficial for innovation, while by contrast, being located outside of agglomerations is not (Fitjar & Rodríguez‐Pose 2019). This dissertation relates to growing debates around the unease with the seemingly accepted truths about the strong connection of agglomerations and firm innovation. The research field has been found to be urban-biased, focussed on cases of successful regions and delivering multiple explanations of their success – while neglecting innovations occurring outside of agglomerations and largely portraying such regions and their actors as disadvantaged (Shearmur 2017). Within the emergent studies of innovation in peripheral contexts, some specifics have been proposed based on empirical studies, but a coherent theoretical framework is missing (e.g. Eder 2019). Against this background, this dissertation aims to contribute to a better understanding of innovation from a peripheral perspective based on comparison of firms by location. It explores knowledge creation processes and innovation activities of Hidden Champions in Germany. These highly innovative and globally active manufacturing firms are quite evenly distributed across Germany. By exploring practices and strategies of these firms towards innovation from a comparative perspective, this study investigates the following overarching research question: • What are the characteristics and main drivers of innovation outside of agglomerations and in how far do these differ from those inside agglomerations? This research builds on relational perspectives on economic action by adopting a geographical lens (Bathelt & Glückler 2003, Yeung 2005). It focusses on actors and how they act and interact in space without privileging any spatial scale or mechanism such as local interaction. Spaces and places are not perceived as territorially bounded units but as contexts in which actors organise their often multi-scalar relations. Following these basic theoretical positions, several concepts and approaches are utilised to develop a detailed understanding of firm innovation in space. While notions of slow innovation and the reliance on firm-internal capabilities point towards reduced interaction requirements especially of firms in peripheral regions to innovate (e.g. Shearmur 2015), the proximity approach (Boschma 2005) and the notion of global pipelines (Bathelt et al. 2004) highlight that geographical proximity is not a necessary precondition for interactive knowledge creation and innovation. Based on these conceptual perspectives and linked to the goal of understanding key mechanisms of innovation from a peripheral perspective, the guiding research question is complemented by the following sub-questions: • How and where do firms gain relevant knowledge for their innovation activities? • Which role do internal capabilities as well as external efforts towards innovation play and how do firms assess both dimensions? • What is the role of the firms’ location, especially regarding local options of knowledge creation? Based on a mixed method research design including a quantitative survey among the Hidden Champions and qualitative interviews with representatives of these firms, three dimensions relevant to the understanding of knowledge creation and innovation are considered for the empirical analyses: practices of knowledge creation at the individual level, strategic approaches towards innovation at the organisational level and the socio-spatial contexts in which knowledge creation processes and innovation are organised. The overarching finding of this dissertation is that firms like Hidden Champions largely follow the same principles to innovate independently from their location. Thereby, the results highlight the commonalities of firm innovation in urban and peripheral contexts instead of pointing towards major limitations or specificities of innovation in more peripheral regions. With taking the firm at the centre of analysis, this research demonstrates that regional economic pre-conditions do not necessarily relate to the capacities of firms to innovate. Neither do investigated firms located inside agglomera-tions largely capitalise on options of local interaction, nor do firms located outside of agglomerations face major disadvantages due to the lack of local options to source knowledge and interact. Instead and irrespectively of their location, firms strategically engage in various firm-internal and -external options to gain knowledge and have the capacities to shape their multi-scalar socio-spatial contexts for knowledge creation according to their needs. The results underline that intense interaction with externals is only one out of many options for firms to gain knowledge. Next to strong internal capabilities, non-interactive modes of knowledge sourcing via desk research, for instance, and more informal modes of knowledge creation via the participation in trade fairs have been identified as integral parts of firms’ innovation activities. This study suggests that such forms of ‘selective openness’ have not been sufficiently addressed in the research field so far. Selective openness not only stresses the strategic approaches of firms towards innovation but also the variety of options for knowledge creation which are usually not reliant on or connected to the regional contexts of firms. Moreover, this study finds that the connection between innovation and agglomeration is not as clear as suggested by urban perspectives, at least for the German context. Rather, much of the urban/rural and core/periphery divide seems to be discursively produced. This dissertation complements existing research on the geographies of innovation by providing insights from a peripheral view on innovation. It contributes to current debates on urban-biased perspectives and the dichotomous representation of firm innovation in urban and peripheral contexts. Based on the empirical results, it proposes a more differentiated view on openness and suggests recommendations for place-based policies towards regional development and innovation.:Summary 9 1. Introduction 11 1.1. Research objectives and questions 13 1.2. Hidden Champions in Germany 16 1.3. Structure of the dissertation 18 2. Re-thinking the geographies of firm innovation 21 2.1. Firms and innovation 22 2.1.1. Understanding firm innovation 24 2.1.2. Coordination of internal and external knowledge for innovation 25 2.1.3. Varieties of open innovation 29 2.2. Geographies and innovation 33 2.2.1. Beyond territorial innovation 34 2.2.2. Questioning the status quo: urban bias and the periphery label 41 2.2.3. Current understandings of innovation outside of agglomerations 45 2.3. Conceptual framework 51 2.3.1. Positioning the own research 51 2.3.2. A relational perspective on economic processes in space 55 2.3.3. Beyond dualistic conceptualisations of innovation and space 59 3. Methodological approach 66 3.1. Critical realism as the basic ontological and epistemological perspective 66 3.1.1. Basics notions of critical realism 67 3.1.2. Implications for research methodologies 68 3.2. Research design 69 3.2.1. Multi-dimensional comparative approach 70 3.2.2. Triangulation 72 3.2.3. Comparison 73 3.3. Empirical and analytical methods and proceedings 75 3.3.1. Development of a database of Hidden Champions in Germany 75 3.3.2. Quantitative survey 81 3.3.3. Semi-structured interviews 85 4. Patterns and socio-spatial contexts of firm innovation – Quantitative results 90 4.1. The spatial distribution of Hidden Champions in Germany 90 4.2. Firm characteristics and innovation patterns 93 4.2.1. Organisational and spatial aspects of firm structures 93 4.2.2. Innovation activities 94 4.2.3. Information sources and collaboration 96 4.3. Comparison of the firms by location 98 4.4. Types of innovative firms 101 4.4.1. Approach, implementation and results of the cluster analysis 102 4.4.2. Types of innovators and their locations 107 4.5. Interim results and arising questions 110 5. Strategies and practices towards knowledge creation and innovation – Qualitative results 113 5.1. Firm profiles 116 5.1.1. Firms located outside of agglomerations 116 5.1.2. Firms located inside agglomerations 120 5.2. The global integration of firms 124 5.2.1. Firms, their niche markets and ways of internationalisation 124 5.2.2. Knowledge creation strategies and the role of geography 127 5.2.3. Organisational structures to secure the global reach 134 5.2.4. The significance of innovation and high quality 136 5.3. Strategies towards innovation 137 5.3.1. Corporate culture and ambition 138 5.3.2. Key internal and external drivers of innovation 139 5.3.3. The temporal dimension of innovation 142 5.4. Firm-internal organisation of innovation activities 144 5.4.1. Main challenges 145 5.4.2. The headquarters as the central corporate unit 148 5.4.3. Internationalisation of knowledge creation and innovation 150 5.5. The external dimension of innovation activities 155 5.5.1. Access to external sources of knowledge 155 5.5.2. Collaboration with partners 158 5.5.3. Evaluation of the external dimension for innovation 164 5.6. The role of the regional contexts for firm innovation 165 5.6.1. The perception of regional contexts at the headquarters 166 5.6.2. The regional embeddedness of firms 171 5.6.3. Evaluation of the regional dimension 175 5.7. Summary of findings and comparison with the quantitative results 176 6. Firm innovation beyond agglomeration – Discussion of results 180 6.1. Globally dispersed knowledge dynamics and secrecy 180 6.2. The processual character of innovation activities 185 6.3. The role of the places and spaces for firm innovation 191 7. Main findings, conclusions and outlook 196 7.1. Summary of main findings and contributions of the research 196 7.2. Conclusions and policy recommendations 200 7.3. Reflections on the study and avenues for future research 202 Appendices 206 References 220