Drivers of internationalization: The case study of a Finnish B2B SaaS firm

Abstract

Over the last decades, scholars have developed multiple theories that describe how firms enter foreign markets. However, emerging in the 21st century are software-as-a-service (SaaS) business-to-business (B2B) companies that seek to become global operators right from inception and do not follow traditional internationalization theoretical frameworks. How can we understand better the way these firms grow their international presence?

This research aims to analyze the internationalization of B2B SaaS firms by conducting an in-depth study of a Finnish B2B SaaS company Sasai. The author discovers, describes, and analyzes the factors that influenced the way this organization entered foreign markets over six years. The study also aims to provide an understanding of how the Finnish context influenced the way that the firm internationalized.

The literature review part of the study describes the most common internationalization theories. These theories are later compared to the actual internationalization path of the case company. This way, the author investigates if the hypotheses and findings of previous research are also applicable in the case of B2B SaaS firms. The primary data was gathered through conducting semi-structured interviews with the organization representatives. In order to ensure that different points of view are well-represented, the company cofounders, the management, and several ground-level employees were interviewed.

The empirical findings indicate that none of the traditional internationalization frameworks can be directly applied for the analysis of B2B SaaS firms. Instead, the extant frameworks need to be extended to accommodate the behaviors of this new category of firms. These new frameworks could be based on the network and international entrepreneurship theories that appear to be the best for analysis of B2B SaaS companies. Besides, the author finds out that the Finnish context had a significant impact on the internationalization of the case company. As the influence of the Finnish context on B2B SaaS firms has not been studied at the moment of this publication, the author proposes this topic for future research.