We study the role
of critical junctures and imprinting in the internationalization of three
Finnish manufacturing firms over time. The firms investigated started to
internationalize within three different critical junctures: the first global economy (Belle Epoque), a
more closed time following World and
Cold Wars; and the second global economy.
We found that critical junctures might have influenced on the
internationalization strategy taken and pursued. Imprinting (Simsek et al., 2015) is related to not only the pace
of internationalization, but the operation modes used, technology orientation,
and the types of networks formed. The World and Cold War time shows in the slow
internationalization and domestic network orientation. The first and second
global economy provided firms with different kinds of starting points, the
first one being export based, and later on somewhat detrimental for that reason,
and the second one being more based on foreign direct investments, causing
challenges for the early life cycle profitability.