Wensong Bai

Uppsala University | UU · Department of Business Studies

Purpose The authors seek to advance the understanding of small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) internationalization at the regional level and examine the role of home market institutions in this process. Design/methodology/approach The authors analyze hypotheses with data from SMEs in five country markets and from the Global Entrepreneurship Mo...

Geopolitical tensions and a world where state interventions are driven by national security and ideology present novel challenges for emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs). Often, individual companies are targeted, and their corporate growth gets curbed. These phenomena are derived from non-market factors, which are generally absent in...

In this paper, we investigate the direct and indirect effects of the EU-wide mandatory CSR reporting reform (2014/95/EU). We argue and find that, in addition to direct effects, coercive pressure also has spillover effects. An example of such a spillover effect of coercive pressure due to the reform is the change in reporting behavior of firms not s...

As part of the mobility of global talent, returnee entrepreneurs from emerging markets with advance technology are particularly challenged by the increasing geopolitical tension. Returnee entrepreneurs have a stronger reliance on the political relationship when establishing successful business at the home countries. Yet this connection with home-co...

Liabilities of origin (LORs) are a unique challenge for emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) in internationalisation, especially in the advanced markets. In this study, we ask research questions: what types of stereotypes from the host country stakeholders may contribute to EMNEs and LORs, and how EMNEs change these stereotypes over ti...

Both business networks and institutional forces are relevant to firm internationalization but they have seldom been studied together. We investigate under what circumstances firms are more likely to adopt non-predictive strategy in light of the influence of the business networks, the institutional forces, and the home market background affecting th...

While the literature emphasizes the importance of knowledge and foreign market knowledge for international performance, it is unclear about the intervening/mediating relationships. From a knowledge-based view and network approach, we posit that previous foreign market entry (FME) knowledge can be used in the selection of international markets and t...

Returnee entrepreneurs, despite their assumed advantages in possessing international experiences and advanced knowledge, suffer from liability of returnee due to a lack of relationships with political and business actors and experience institutional uncertainty in the home market as they move across different institutional environments. This study...

This study investigates the performance implications of the distinct mechanisms represented by business and social networks in the effectual internationalization. Our hypotheses consider the influence of both network types on firms’ decision-making during internationalization, including the use of effectuation’s overarching principle of non-predict...

In this paper, we draw on social capital theory to explore the role of internal social exchanges in contributing to the international performance of young entrepreneurial firms. We argue that internal social capital embedded within young ventures helps them cultivate international learning effort pertaining to the effective alignment of resources a...

We investigate the role of market uncertainties as determinants of the adoption of control and prediction in the internationalization of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Building on the possibility that uncertain markets may lead to trade-offs between these strategies, as suggested by the convergence between effectuation and internationa...

The effects on innovation of the dual embeddedness of returnee young ventures (RYVs) in both domestic and international networks of relationships and knowledge contexts are important for value creation, growth, and success of these firms and embody a unique research opportunity. Drawing on a framework combining a business relationship perspective a...

Based on a cross-country data set, this study approaches research gaps on how effectuation theory can be used to explain firm performance in international markets. The point of departure of this study are three of the cornerstones of effectuation theory—non-predictive strategy, affordable losses and network— and we develop seven hypotheses, which w...

Opportunity seeking has become increasingly important for explaining firm internationalization, but our understanding of how opportunity is mediated within international networks is limited. This study probes the concept of network-mediated opportunities and attempts to identify what drives a firm's reception of new international opportunities. Bas...

This paper sheds light on the international new ventures led by returnee entrepreneurs and investigates the influence of networking capability and the usefulness of international knowledge for the overall performance of so-called international returnee ventures (IRVs). By integrating network theory with a capability view of firm performance, it adv...