International Business: An Asia Pacific Perspective, Second Edition

5. International Expansion

When a firm is undergoing international expansion, its managers must make decisions about the entry mode, entry timing, the geographic market for entry, and the product market for entry (see Figure 5-1). As we will discuss in this chapter, each of these decisions has its own set of drivers. It is important to understand these drivers and to understand the advantages and trade-offs of entering a market early or late, of using one entry mode or another, of moving into a market that has a similar or a dissimilar national institutional environment, or of entering a product market in which a firm has strong or weak competitive advantages.

Figure 5-1. Key Internationalization Decisions

The four decisions outlined in Figure ...