Decision Making and Networks in the Process of Opportunity Formation of International New Ventures
Takkula, Henry (2016)
Takkula, Henry
2016
Kuvaus
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Tiivistelmä
International new ventures are companies which internationalize in a rapid pace. The goal of this thesis is to research how networks and decision-making logic affect the process of opportunity formation of these companies. The first goal is to reveal whether these companies discover or create opportunities. Once this is researched, the focus turns to networks and decision-making logic.
The study follows a multiple case study strategy. There are four Finnish international new ventures interviewed in a semi-structured interview. All companies include at least two interviews with two people from the company. Interviews are recorded and documented. The data is analyzed according to the research questions and possible new findings and contributions are introduced.
This thesis shows that the studied international new ventures favor opportunity creation. Findings show that there are both opportunity-formation logics in use, but opportunity discovery has a smaller role. According to the findings the role of networks in the opportunity-formation process was quite low. The results indicated that there are large differences between companies on this aspect. The companies that have opportunity creation tend to have less social capital and the ones using opportunity discovery have more social capital. Lastly, this research reveals that all four companies show a great deal of effectuation in their decision-making logic. This contradicts with the existing research to some degree. Current literature believes the effectuation logic to be linked with opportunity creation and causation logic to be linked with opportunity discovery. This thesis’ findings show that all companies favored effectuation logic, despite the level of opportunity creation or discovery. However, this finding could possibly only apply to international new ventures. This thesis also concludes that this decision-making logic changes as the companies grow. At a later stage the case companies turned into causation based decision-making logic.
The study follows a multiple case study strategy. There are four Finnish international new ventures interviewed in a semi-structured interview. All companies include at least two interviews with two people from the company. Interviews are recorded and documented. The data is analyzed according to the research questions and possible new findings and contributions are introduced.
This thesis shows that the studied international new ventures favor opportunity creation. Findings show that there are both opportunity-formation logics in use, but opportunity discovery has a smaller role. According to the findings the role of networks in the opportunity-formation process was quite low. The results indicated that there are large differences between companies on this aspect. The companies that have opportunity creation tend to have less social capital and the ones using opportunity discovery have more social capital. Lastly, this research reveals that all four companies show a great deal of effectuation in their decision-making logic. This contradicts with the existing research to some degree. Current literature believes the effectuation logic to be linked with opportunity creation and causation logic to be linked with opportunity discovery. This thesis’ findings show that all companies favored effectuation logic, despite the level of opportunity creation or discovery. However, this finding could possibly only apply to international new ventures. This thesis also concludes that this decision-making logic changes as the companies grow. At a later stage the case companies turned into causation based decision-making logic.