Researching international entrepreneurial histories

Event Details

This seminar introduces our recent research and research agenda on international entrepreneurial histories, examining how entrepreneurial action emerges, influences, and shapes nation-level developments, in different historical contexts.

International entrepreneurship research has traditionally explained how firms expand across borders but has paid less attention to how entrepreneurs interpret historical circumstances during this process and how entrepreneurial action, in turn, contributes to broader societal developments. In this seminar, we discuss the potential of historical methods and an emerging research agenda on international entrepreneurial histories. Drawing on our recent work examining more than 150 years of internationalization in the Finnish forest industry, we show how entrepreneurs' and executives' opportunity beliefs and legitimation activities were shaped by changing political, economic, and social contexts, and how their entrepreneurial action created lasting footprint in the society. We also introduce our on-going EntreNational project, which investigates how international entrepreneurship contributes to the construction and evolution of national identity through internationally active firms in the forest, design, and ICT industries.