Abstract

The prevalence of International New Ventures (INVs) has increased during the past twenty years. Nevertheless,
to date there has been no general consensus within the literature on an explanation as to the rapid internationalisation of some firms. Do they follow a similar process to other firms that internationalise based on
a more ‘measured’ incremental sequential process of internationalisation. This paper proposes and tests an innovation diffusion model of the internationalisation of small firm INVs and others by drawing on key
innovation diffusion models from the literature. The results of this analysis indicate that the synthesised model of
export adoption is effective in explaining the internationalisation process of INVs and other firms within the
Queensland Food and Beverage Industry. Significantly, the features of the original innovation diffusion models
developed in the consumer behaviour literature, which had limited examination within the internationalisation
literature, were confirmed. This includes the ability of firms, or specifically decision-makers, to skip stages
based on previous experience.

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