ABSTRACT
Over the past decade, the internationalization literature has reported cases of accelerated internationalization where the traditional stages of internationalization (Johanson and Vahlne 1977) were truncated or skipped (Bell et al. 2001; Wright and Etemad 2001). An important explanation that emerged for this pertained to the role of network relationships. For instance, network relationships could lead to client followership (Bell 1995), that is, a firm’s client in a foreign market may open a subsidiary in a third market, leading the firm to follow suit with a view to servicing the client in that new market. Alternatively, an international client may provide useful trade leads in that foreign market.
