LOI. This thesis joins the conversation about the internationalization of the firm: Dunning’s Eclectic Paradigm (Ownership, Location, Internalization) operates as an envelope to anchor important factors that have previously received little attention in the IB conversation. These missing elements are the role of finance in explaining internationalization, the role of State agents, i.e. ECAs, and the role of time.

The reason why it is important to deal with these omissions is because, many firms rely on export credit agencies’ (ECAs’) services to conduct either their early internationalization, or they rely on ECAs to provide financing tools to enable their later international business activities. This factor has surprisingly been neglected in most IB explanations on internationalization and the success and failure of MNEs.

Within the thesis, I studied these in three separate studies. Essay 1, 2 and 3, have been conducted to shed light on the role of ECAs in firms’ internationalization. The three studies brought up surprising observations that were not sufficiently considered in the explanations of internationalization and how MNE safeguard their business. I focused on novel elements and applied an abductive reasoning (Saetre & Van de Ven, 2021). The surprising results in each of the studies, let me to search for a theoretical anchoring framework. I used Dunning’s OLI as an envelope to integrate the most important factors. These enhance our understanding of internationalization. Then I propose a new direction for the three dimensions conceptual model, presented as LOI.

Regarding the contributions, I found as the results that the focused factors, finance, state agents and time, increase our understanding how ECAs support firms’ capabilities and influence how firms make their internationalization decisions. And I am highlighting new factors that increase the explanatory power of the internationalization journey of firms: capabilities, willingness and the goal.

The research contributes to academia beyond IB through the methodology used. The abductive reasoning serves as a concrete illustration of how a human brain conceives and constructs internationalization decision making. The dimension that connects it to natural Life sciences and biological models, is the innovation of this thesis: the concept of time internalization.