Global Strategies and Entrepreneurial Firms: The Role of the Entrepreneur’s Features in the Decision-Making Process

The purpose of this paper is to deepen knowledge of entrepreneurial decision-making about global strategies. Towards this goal, it presents a conceptual framework useful for supporting entrepreneurial decisions for globalisation, drawing on an integrated analysis of the external environment and of the internal components, with a specific focus on entrepreneur’s characteristics, in terms of cognitive and emotional profiles. It is suggested to adopt a logical process to identify which strategic levers are available for global players to implement their global strategies. The paper provides several implications. In terms of theoretical implications, existing studies are based on the industrial organization-based theory or on the resource-based theory, while an integrated analysis combining these two aspects seems to be lacking. The proposed framework represents a complete and integrated one devoted to global strategies orientation, it also inserts the ‘entrepreneur matter’ as a variable that affects both the decision-making process and the global decisions’ contents. With regard to managerial implications, this framework can help global entrepreneurial firms or future global entrepreneurial firms to face problems related to the global dimension and make decisions to define the strategic levers for globalisation. It proposes the description of the various variables connected to the external environment, the features of the internal firm, and the personal traits of the entrepreneur, all elements which an entrepreneur-decision-maker should take into account during the decision-making process to attain a successful decision.