Heuristic decision-making in firm internationalization: The influence of context-specific experience

Abstract

It is widely understood that the internationalization decisions made by companies are complex and constrained by uncertainty. While prior research has shown that heuristics can facilitate decision-making in complex and uncertain environments, the role of heuristic decision-making in internationalization decisions has not been studied in depth. In order to remedy this lacuna, the article uses a qualitative and inductive approach to track the development of heuristic decision-making processes in two Finnish SMEs as they conduct their first moves towards internationalization, explicating the influence of context-specific experience on developments. The emergent theoretical model indicates that while heuristic decision-making has a positive impact on internationalization strategy development, managers are unable to harness this at the beginning of their first internationalization. Indeed, the positive impact appears only after a certain level of context-specific experience is accumulated and when the stimulus of an unexpected event triggers its transformation into usable heuristics.