Title: The relationship between innovation and internationalisation in a turbulent environment

Authors: Daria Podmetina; Daria Volchek; Maria Smirnova

Addresses: Lappeenranta University of Technology P.O. Box 20, 53850, Lappeenranta, Finland ' Aalto University School of Business, P.O. Box 21210, FI-00076, Aalto, Finland ' Graduate School of Management, Saint-Petersburg State University, Volkhovsky 3, 199004, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Abstract: Increasing globalisation and intensified cross-border cooperation, accompanied by technological breakthroughs, have revealed a new phenomenon of innovative internationalising firms. Are innovative firms really more internationally oriented and more successful in their international activities? There is theoretical evidence on interdependence between innovation and the decision to internationalise; hence the nature of this relationship remains unclear. We analysed the cross-sectional and cross-industry data collected from 200 innovative firms in Russia. Our findings suggest that the degree of a firm's innovativeness, whether it is product, technological, or marketing innovation, does not necessarily push the firm to internationalise. However, if the firm already operates on foreign markets, its innovativeness in introducing new technological processes and in positioning its products and/or services provides a significant increase in the firm's international performance, in terms of both scale and overall satisfaction with the achievement of objectives in foreign markets.

Keywords: internationalisation; exports; product innovation; technological innovation; market turbulence; Russia; innovative firms; foreign markets; firm performance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTMKT.2015.070648

International Journal of Technology Marketing, 2015 Vol.10 No.3, pp.326 - 341

Received: 21 Oct 2013
Accepted: 17 Sep 2014

Published online: 16 Jul 2015 *

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