The level of deliberacy in international market selection strategy: a look at a Finnish multi-sided platform start-up
Background Recently, there has been a growth in literature pertaining to international market expansion of companies described as ‘born globals’. Within this sphere, multi-sided platform businesses that connect two or more sides of a market, have gained significant traction. Much of the current research has focused on analysing the way the companies internationalize. There is, however, a gap in research relating to how the specific international market selection strategies are formed at early stage companies and with what level of deliberacy. Scholars such as Spence (2003) and Crick and Spence (2005) look into the level of deliberacy in startup international market selection but do not take an in-depth look into how it is formed and what factors influence it. The thesis sheds light on the strategy process within a highly dynamic environment and helps understand the intentions and patterns of the case company in view of international market selection. Objectives The main objective of the study was to understand the initial international market selection strategy formation and execution from the perspective of deliberacy. This was achieved through an in-depth case analysis of a Finnish multi-sided platform start-up that was at a nascent state of development. The second objective focused on understanding the underlying processes resulting in the selection of a given internationalization market over another one. This was done by analyzing the key motivators in market selection decisions. Conclusions The key finding of the research was that the level of deliberacy in initial international market selection was driven by resource constraints and the managerial perceptions of the founders. These factors introduced a situation under which there were clearly identified internationalization markets based on the founders’ vision. The international market selection thus followed an entrepreneurial strategy path, as described by Mintzberg and Waters (1985). In contrary to existing literature, a highly emergent network view did not seem to be the fundamental approach to the selection of international markets.