Internetized International Entrepreneurship: an exploratory study

Sometimes firms have no choice about whether to engage in international business, particularly smaller firms, who face international competition even in their home market and can not deny international market possibilities if they are to survive. Considering Information Technology (IT) as a catalyst for firms ' international activities, this article tries to holistically explore the way Information Technology, in particular Internet influence smaller firms internationalization. This paper presents a qualitative study involving three owners/managers of Iranian small and medium sized enterprises (SME s). The study shows that IT has a positive impact on the scope and speed of internationalization and could have a significant impact on the extent of smaller firms ' internationalization. The study also introduces Internetized International Entrepreneurship (IIE) and comes to the conclusion that the Internet has a positive impact on international opportunity exploration and exploitation among small and medium sized firms