Technological Resource Leveraging and the Internationalisation of New Ventures

A growing body of research on international entrepreneurship suggests that new ventures have succeeded in entering international markets by creatively exploiting their tangible and intangible technological resources. Using the resource-based view of the firm, this paper explores the impact of leveraging selected tangible and intangible technological resources on the speed and degree of sales internationalisation among US software new ventures. Even though R&D investments are not significant predictors of the speed or degree of sales internationalisation, technological networks and technological reputations are. The interactions of networks and reputation with R&D spending are also positively and significantly associated with higher sales internationalisation. Technological networks also interact positively with R&D spending to expedite sales internationalisation, but the interaction of these investments with technological reputations is not significant. The results show that intangible technological resources play an important role in the internationalisation of software new ventures' sales. The implications of the findings for future international entrepreneurship research are discussed.