Understanding eINVs through the lens of prior research in entrepreneurship, international business and international entrepreneurship

In this chapter we examine the growing phenomenon of internet-based international new ventures, which we label “eINVS,” through the lens of previous research in the fields of entre- preneurship, international business and international entrepreneurship. Our purpose is to iden- tify where these existing bodies of research help us to understand eINVs, and where there are gaps that constitute important questions for future research. We define an eINV by adapting a widely used definition of international new ventures (INV) (Oviatt and McDougall 2005: 5): an eINV is a venture whose business model is enabled by a digital platform and that, from incep- tion, seeks to derive significant competitive advantage from international growth. With a focus explicitly on how extant research helps us understand eINVs, this review differs from that of Reuber and Fischer (2011b), who focus on firm-level internet-related resources that are related to the internationalization of ventures in general; that of Pezderka and Sinkovics (2011), who focus on risk and the online foreign market entry decisions of small and medium-sized enter- prises (SMEs); and that of Chandra and Coviello (2010), who focus on consumers using the internet to pursue international opportunities.