The Nature of service characteristics and their impact on born global internationalisation

This research aims to extend the born global and service firm literature by examining the internationalisation behaviour of born global service firms. By adopting an exploratory case study methodology, the investigation studies the internationalisation of 8 'hard' and 'soft' service based born global firms. The findings show that the extant born global and service based literature does not fully explain the internationalisation paths of these firms. The case studies suggest that hard and soft service firms differ in the drivers of their internationalisation, their choice of markets and choice of entry mode. Soft service based born global firms are particularly unique as they follow clients into foreign markets and initially enter markets via low commitment entry modes such as exporting before rapidly progressing to a high control mode of entry.