Abstract/Summary

The literature of Entrepreneurship offers a wide array of explanations about the field itself, the traits and cultural capital of entrepreneurs, the concept of opportunities and the process of international entrepreneurship. However, this does not fully explain how entrepreneurs succeed in establishing trust and legitimacy, particularly when they initiate an expansion venture in foreign territory amid contextual and cultural differences. Research has shown that they engage in narratives and storytelling with their stakeholders aiming to constitute a new venture identity and manage uncertainty. Not only such narratives serve to mediate between extant stocks of entrepreneurial resources and the subsequent execution phase, but they are also recognised as a form of data and, act as a platform for learning or as a methodological research approach. Following these concepts, this thesis therefore proposes investigating the process of the internationalisation of small firms from a narrative approach. By means of eight case studies of entrepreneurs who have managed to set initial footholds in new markets and grew their businesses in neighbouring countries, it is set to explore how they all leveraged their established cultural capital and used narratives with the aim of creating trust and legitimacy in their new venture thus, overcoming the pervasive liability of foreignness. A qualitative case study approach is proposed to meet the research objectives and investigate a real-life phenomenon within an organisation and its environmental context. Semi-structured interviews are used as a method to collect empirical data with open-ended questions to allow entrepreneurs to engage in narratives reflecting about their nascent organisational life along with their personal interpretations of key events and major stories. The geographical location where the study is expected to take place will be Lebanon, a country that suffers greatly from poor institutional environment but rich in entrepreneurial initiatives, and the main GCC countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who provide good infrastructure with governmental support for entrepreneurs. Specifically, this research attempts to explore how Lebanese entrepreneurs leverage their social capital and cognitive skills and initiate new ventures in GCC countries. It is in a position to contribute to knowledge by highlighting how some entrepreneurs form, maintain, revise and negotiate their emergent identity in an internationalising context, inspired by the successful business model which was created in their home country. Additionally, it answers to calls to explicate the theoretical role of entrepreneurial narratives in establishing trust with their various stakeholders and, in attempting to gain legitimacy in the new market. Finally, this research is also able to contribute to practice, mainly for the potential entrepreneurs who are interested in the process of international venture creation. It allows them to further realise the importance of 1) reassessing their market entry approach based on the expansion motives of whether it is necessity or opportunity-based, 2) actively exploring their international networks repertoire and approach contacts considering a win-win situation, 3) allowing for substantial changes in their business models as dictated by the new context, which in turn can facilitate the trial and error learning and ease the adaptation process, 4) leveraging their home market reputation or detaching from it, according on how the home country is regarded in the international markets for that specific industry sector, 5) directing their trusting actions and behavioural cues to ultimately achieve business mutuality with the stakeholders and, 6) encouraging them of making distinctiveness claims for optimal legitimacy. From policymaking perspectives, this study also encourages officials to introduce 1) sponsored governmental trade fairs to promote and enhance international networking, 2) better targeted programmes to entice international entrepreneurs and, 3) governmental support and stimuli programmes to possibly narrow any geographical variation gap of start-ups that may exist within a country.