Record Details

The internationalisation of South African enterprises: A focus on international market selection

Acta Commercii

 
 
Field Value
 
Title The internationalisation of South African enterprises: A focus on international market selection
 
Creator Ashley, Natasha L. Mbuya, Fredrick F. Vögel, Adolf J.
 
Subject International Business; International Market Selection internationalisation; international market selection; non-systematic international market selection; systematic international market selection; qualitative descriptive research; South Africa
Description Orientation: The selection of attractive foreign markets has been identified as one of the most important decisions in an enterprise’s internationalisation process.Research purpose: The primary objective of this study was to determine which international market selection (IMS) processes, if any, South African enterprises follow when selecting international markets for expansion.Motivation for the study: Whilst a significant effort has been made to close the gap in knowledge regarding the IMS processes followed by enterprises from emerging markets, little is known about the IMS processes of South African enterprises.Research design, approach and method: This qualitative descriptive study collected data through semistructured interviews conducted with senior managers who have been or are involved in IMS at 12 South African enterprises. The collected data was analysed using thematic analysis.Main findings: The study found that the majority of enterprises who participated in this study use a systematic, four-step IMS process. However, the process is more flexible than that proposed by some theoretical models. In particular, the selection criteria used when analysing a market are considered flexibly and, in some cases, even in parallel instead of sequentially as proposed by some models.Practical/managerial implications: Research shows that mistakes related to the inappropriate and inadequate evaluation of markets are almost always more expensive than the costs associated with conducting a systematic IMS. Therefore, this research provides guidelines to enterprises on how to conduct such an IMS.Contribution/value-add: This study contributes to the extant IMS literature by broadening our understanding of the IMS processes followed by South African enterprises and in doing so, answers the call to close the emerging market knowledge gap.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2022-06-30
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Qualitative descriptive research
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/ac.v22i1.986
 
Source Acta Commercii; Vol 22, No 1 (2022); 10 pages 1684-1999 2413-1903
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://actacommercii.co.za/index.php/acta/article/view/986/1752 https://actacommercii.co.za/index.php/acta/article/view/986/1753 https://actacommercii.co.za/index.php/acta/article/view/986/1754 https://actacommercii.co.za/index.php/acta/article/view/986/1755
 
Coverage South Africa — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2022 Natasha L. Ashley, Fredrick F. Mbuya, Adolf J. Vögel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
ADVERTISEMENT