Internationalisation of Born Globals from The Theoretical Perspective

The paper discusses the evolution of theoretical approaches towards the internationalisation process of firms, especially SMEs. It clarifies the definitions of a born global (BG) firm, presents its characteristics and the specifics of its internationalisation process. The objective of this paper is to present the internationalisation process of a born global firm from a theoretical perspective. The article starts with the presentation of the oldest approaches towards internationalisation and shows how ongoing changes in the global economic environment have influenced international behaviours of firms as well as changed the researchers’ perception of BGs and their internationalisation process. The article highlights the role of knowledge in BGs’ internationalisation. Due to the magnitude of literature on BGs and their internationalisation, this article does not cover all of them. The article ends with conclusions and points to further opportunities and directions of research. This article came into being within the research project OPUS entitled: Patterns of internationalization of high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises, (UMO-2013/11/B/HS4/02135) 2014-2017.