Reviewing the relationship between technological innovation and internationalization from a dynamic capabilities’ perspective

Considerable attention has been paid to the reciprocal relationship between technological innovation and internationalization. However, despite research efforts in identifying if and how these two strategic processes influence each other, the literature is inundated with inconsistencies, contradictions and heterogeneous in terms of theoretical approaches applied. This paper reviews and critically examines the empirical literature on the relationship between technological innovation and internationalization. Building upon the dynamic capability view, we distinguish between sensing, seizing and reconfiguring aspects of technological innovation and internationalization and use it as a framework to organize the empirical literature. A systematic analysis of seventy-two journal articles published in leading journals over the last 25 years reveals that the majority of the empirical studies largely focus on seizing and not on sensing and reconfiguring. We present a set of propositions that outline 1) how technological innovation and internationalization are related processes in firms 2) how this relationship is mediated by co-ideation and co-innovation 3) how entrepreneurial orientation leads the sensing and seizing of opportunities and reconfigures the resources base. Our discussion and model help to delineate key differences in the relationship between technological innovation and internationalization that firms have.