Abstract The process of internationalization of firms has in the past been seen as something that is costly and time-consuming. For those reasons, companies took long before they started expanding internationally, growing strong in domestic markets first. However, now there are companies being started, that right from the outset start producing and selling on international markets. Companies that behave this way are a rather new phenomenon and are known as Born Globals. The purpose of our thesis was to increase the understanding of factors that are important for explaining Born Globals rapid internationalization, and also how these factors have affected the process. Most of the research done on Born Globals has been of high-tech companies. However, the phenomenon is not limited to them. Therefore we researched one high-tech company and one low-tech to see if there are similarities in the driving forces behind their rapid internationalization. Four factors have been addressed repeatedly when trying to explain Born Global’s behavior: Globalization, Industry, Entrepreneur and Networks. These factors were used as a theoretical framework for our thesis. However, our findings point out that to gain a deeper understanding, the interdependent relationship between the variables should also be taken into consideration. After gathering empirical data through interviews with key people in each company, our findings point out that access to complimentary resources and a possibility to control them efficiently was important in explaining both companies rapid internationalization. By focusing on the core competencies of the company and outsourcing other value-adding functions, companies are able to internationalize rapidly even with scarce resources. Access to resources through networks, as well as entrepreneurial ambition helped speed up this process. Keywords: Born Globals, Rapid Internationalization

Sammanfattning I takt med att världen krymper och gränserna mellan världens länder suddas ut ökar möjligheterna för små- och medelstora företag att snabbt slå sig in på den globala marknaden. De företag som inom de närmaste åren efter sin etablering får en snabb tillväxt på internationella marknader brukar benämnas Born Global företag. Det är just denna kategori av företag vi har valt att undersöka. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka vilka faktorer som gör det möjligt för ett Born Global företag att överleva en tidig internationalisering. De traditionella teorierna om internationalisering domineras av Uppsalamodellen som förespråkar att denna process sker gradvis hos företagen. Företagen ger sig in på nya marknader allt eftersom de får ny kunskap och information om de berörda marknaderna. Denna teori har på senare år blivit utmanad av Born Global fenomenet då Uppsalamodellen kan anses vara en föråldrad modell.   En generell definition av vilka kriterier som ett företag ska uppfylla för att klassas som ett Born Global företag finns inte, utan varje författare har en egen definition. Vi har därför kombinerat olika författares definitioner för att få fram lämpliga kriterier. Ett Born Global företag ska enligt oss ha en export som motsvarar minst 25 % av deras omsättning och detta ska ha skett inom tre år efter starten. Dessa kriterier använde vi sedan för att välja ut lämpliga företag att undersöka. Efter att ha genomfört undersökningen kom vi fram till att de viktigaste faktorerna för att överleva en tidig internationalisering är att ha en unik produkt eller tjänst samt en internationellt driven entreprenör.

Den svenska modeindustrin spås en ljus framtid och har trots 2000-talets lågkonjunktur nått nya exportrekord. Den tuffa inhemska konkurrensen har gjort att etablering på utländska marknader blivit avgörande för de svenska modeföretagen. Det finns dock endast begränsad kunskap om internationaliseringsprocessen för denna bransch. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka vilka metoder som används av små och medelstora svenska modeföretag vid internationalisering och de bakomliggande orsakerna till dessa metoder. Studien baseras på en kvalitativ undersökning av fem svenska modeföretag som sedan analyserats med ett teoretiskt ramverk av internationaliseringsprocesser. Resultatet visar att det inte finns en applicerbar modell för branschens internationalisering. De studerade företagen har alla inlett internationaliseringen med etableringar på enstaka närliggande, lågriskmarknader. Företagen har därefter ändrat riktning i sin internationaliseringsprocess då marknader längre bort penetrerats. Vid valet av dessa marknader har tidigare erhållen intern kunskap och nätverk, varit avgörande. Denna kunskap och nätverk kan liknas med företag som är Born Global.

The overall purpose of this paper is to explore the role of leadership, vision and motivation of the employees (empowerment) in order to get a better understanding of how the top manager of a Born Global company can develop the company. The study is based on two explorative case studies, where interviews have been conducted with both the top manager as well as the employees. This study is considered crucial in case of born global where the top manager spends maximum time in travelling. Top manager needs to integrate such a culture where employees are set in a framework wherein the operations are handled smoothly during the absence of top manager. In this era of global competition the key for a successful firm lies in the empowerment of employees with well defined boundaries. A qualitative strategy and a research design with two case studies on Swedish Born Global companies were used in reaching the purpose of this study. The primary empirical data were mainly collected from six interviews. Two interviews were conducted with top manager and rest with employees. Secondary data like general company information were gathered from the website of the companies prior to primary data collection to have a better understanding and preparation. The results of the study indicate that the vision is more important for the top manager compared to the employees working in a born global company. However, the vision manages to establish a supportive culture where their daily activities and decisions of the employees are in line with the vision of the company. We see that this has been possible due to the leadership style and motivational factors like delegation of responsibility and autonomy of work. Our findings indicate that empowering employees has a significant advantage supporting the growth and internationalization of the born global company. Based on these findings, practical and theoretical implications are presented and discussed in the paper.

An investigation of the problem of inelastic scattering process under the Coulomb Born approximation is given. Different approaches to calculate Coulomb wavefunctions in the momentum space representation are analyzed and a discussion of their existences in the generalized distribution sense is provided. Inokuti’s approach of finding the differential cross section in the momentum space representation under the Coulomb Born approximation is described and a different approach with an application of the Bremsstrahlung integral is developed and compared with Inokuti’s approach.

Purpose This study explores the internationalization pathway of the Born Global, The Company, when entering the Mexican market. Background Companies have recently started realizing the importance of “being green” for their customers. Market demand shifts towards more natural and renewable materials that can prevent damage and enhance the well-being of individuals and societies.  Therefore, the market for biodegradable materials is growing and is full of possibilities. Today, many additives suppliers operate globally. Born Global firms stand out with their approach to the internationalization process. It is interesting to find out the uniqueness of the Born Global firm’s internationalization pathway, their motivation and behavior. Method  Qualitative data was collected through two in-depth semi-structured interviews with two top management team members of The Company behind the case study. Before the two main interviews, 4 pre-interviews took place, which helped the authors to become familiar with the environment and operations of the company.  This data was complemented with secondary data obtained though literature reviews.   Conclusion The authors were able to find several gaps in the Integrative Model of Small Firms Internationalization, by Bell et al. (2003). Firstly, they found that not all Born Global firms have a Home market to return to. Secondly, it was clear that the model was too rigid in its segmentation of types of Born Global firms. According to the research done by the authors, a firm can act as both an innovator and adopter, as a “Knowledge-intensive” and “Knowledge-based” firm, and can target both a niche and a mass market simultaneously.

An investigation of the problem of inelastic scattering process under the Coulomb Born approximation is given. Different approaches to calculate Coulomb wavefunctions in the momentum space representation are analyzed and a discussion of their existences in the generalized distribution sense is provided. Inokuti’s approach of finding the differential cross section in the momentum space representation under the Coulomb Born approximation is described and a different approach with an application of the Bremsstrahlung integral is developed and compared with Inokuti’s approach.

Over the last two decades, the Born Global phenomenon has grown into a fascinating field of internationalization studies. Several perspectives have been studied to enrich this rather new area of business research, however little has been studied in context of the types of economies from where these firms emerge. More especially, insufficient amounts of literature cover the Born Global phenomenon from the emerging market context.   Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of this phenomenon from the emerging market context by investigating the factors that influence these born global firms to succeed in their international markets.   We conducted a case study of two companies one from Mexico and another from Ghana. We adopted a qualitative approach for the literature review, data collection and analysis during the course of the study. We also utilized theoretical concepts to build a conceptualized framework to guide our study. Both primary and secondary data sources were used in this research.   Our study revealed five main factors that influence born global firms from emerging economies to succeed in the international scene. These factors are both internal and external and are as follows; strategic management of the firm, networks, product differentiation, technology and markets. We found that the significance of each of the factors’ influence on the companies was specific to type of industry and product/service offering.

Företagsvärlden, med avseende på företagets mognad och om de väljer hemmamarknaden eller den internationella marknaden som den primära, tidigare var indelad i tre större områden. Dock har det under de senaste åren skapats en fjärde typ av företag, Born Globals. Dessa företag utnyttjar det faktum att världen virtuellt sett har blivit mindre, exempelvis genom användandet av Internet. Dessa verkar skilja sig från de traditionella företagen i både struktur och tillvägagångssätt. Vi analyserar därför i denna studie möjligheten att applicera traditionella affärsmodellsteorier på de nya Born Global företagen. Studien avser även delvis att identifiera potentiella faktorer för teoretiskt skapande av nya affärsmodellsteorier, men också till att identifiera en grund till en modell som Born Global företagen praktiskt kan använda i uppstartsfasen. Hur kan dagens traditionella affärsmodellsteorier appliceras på de moderna Born Global företagen, vilken är den eventuella diskrepansen och varför? För att besvara problemformuleringen på bästa sätt genomförde vi fyra djupintervjuer med nystartade företag som avser operera på den internationella marknaden redan i uppstartsfasen. Vid intervjuerna ställdes frågor kring det faktiska tillvägagångssättet företagen haft, men också frågor kring incitament till uppstarten. För att på bästa sätt analysera resultatet av den empiriska studien har vi tagit stöd i olika teorier. Dessa utgörs exempelvis av nätverkande, Flamholtz sexstegspyramid men också Uppsalamodellen. Denna modell har legat till grund för i stort sätt all övrig forskning kring internationaliserande företag. Vi identifierar en del tydliga kopplingar till att dessa modeller och teorier är applicerbara även på Born Globals, men vi ser också att de på flera signifikanta punkter skiljer sig. Detta ledde till att vi skapade en egen modell, baserad på det empiriska resultatet intervjuerna gav oss. Vi sammanlänkade dessa med de befintliga modellerna och teorierna för att sedan skapa den modell vi kallar I-STAND-modellen.

Explanations for Latinas high fertility levels have been centered in terms of current or actual fertility, as measured by children ever born (CEB). However, studies of this nature have failed to utilize methods appropriate for evaluating a count variable, such as CEB. Even fewer analyses have incorporated "ideal" fertility as an explanatory factor of actual fertility, particularly in the case of Latinas. In this thesis, multiple Poisson and zero-inflated Poisson regression models are used to assess the impact of independent factors on ideal and actual fertility among Latinas, as compared to white women. In the comparative analyses of ideal and actual fertility (CEB), the independent variables in demographic composition (marital status), socialization factors (mother's CEB and church attendance), socioeconomic and employment status (education and employment) and fertility history and intentions (abortions) are found to be consistently, significantly related to both ideal and actual fertility. More importantly, women have higher intended than actual fertility. The fact that Mexican women have been able to realize their fertility intentions provides a better understanding of the fertility behavior of Latinas. This means that Latinas actually want the larger numbers of children that they are having.