Hi, Rimante:

An interesting recent study (Hånell, Nordman, & Sharma, 2014) explored longitudinally a life sciences international new venture’s (INV’s) development of foreign market knowledge (FMK) and how this knowledge development relates to the firm’s entrepreneurial orientation (EO). The findings show that the EO of an INV changes during its internationalisation. A strong EO, often considered to be synonymous with the early expansion of an INV, is not always able to guide the INV in its later developmental stages. In its continued internationalisation, an INV instead needs firm-specific FMK accumulated from a process of learning by doing!

Another recent study (Amirsardari, & Maritz, 2015) explored the opportunity phase within the venture creation process in order to explain that a distinction exists between opportunity identification and opportunity exploitation. Three fundamental entrepreneurial constructs were explored in detail which includes: individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO), entrepreneurial intention (EI) and entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE). The authors conducted a systematic review of the literature  in two stages, secondary data collection and data synthesis, through the identification and inclusion of all relevant available research. A conceptual framework is proposed which integrates IEO, EI and ESE within the venture creation process in order to provide further insight into the process of becoming an entrepreneur.

• Hånell, S. M., Nordman, E. R., & Sharma, D. D. (2014). The continued internationalisation of an international new venture. European Business Review, 26(5), 471-490.
• Amirsardari, A., & Maritz, A. (2015). EXPLORING OPPORTUNITY IDENTIFICATION AND OPPORTUNITY EXPLOITATION WITHIN THE VENTURE CREATION PROCESS. International Journal Of Organizational Innovation, 8(2), 27-39.

Hope this helps!

Kind Regards, Nadeem

Dear Mohammed,

Thank you for your reply. However, none of the studies provide indicators for measuring exploration and exploitation of international opportunities in a quantitative way.

Still, thanks a lot!

Kind regards, Rimante

There are different ways to measure constructs. 

The most common being to use existing measurement scales. 

Sometimes the scale does not exist per se, which might be the case with exploration # explotation of international opportunities, so you may: 

1) Use a measurement scale development procedure to develop your own scale

2) Use existing qualitative or quantitative literature (usually qualitative is better because it provides richer data) in order to derive specific measurement items. For your case, here is an interesting article: 

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sussie_Morrish/publication/258848886_The_Role_of_Entrepreneurial_Networks_in_the_Exploration_and_Exploitation_of_Internationalization_Opportunities_by_Information_and_Communication_Technology_Firms/links/00b4952c1ee331260b000000.pdf

Look at the references, you could find other relevant studies to derive items. After developing such an ad hoc scale I strongly suggest that you keep track of which items you took from which study and that you pre-test your scale on a sample (students for example) in order to check for reliability and validity before going any further into your researhc process.

Kind regards, 

Article The Role of Entrepreneurial Networks in the Exploration and ...

Dear Rimante

I suggest you to read Zahra and George (2002) who propose the operationalization of the Potential and Realized Absorptive Capacity which allow you to understand the identification and exploitation of information about international markets.

Regards,

Ronald