The Interplay Between Managerial Cognition, Earliness of Internationalization, and Post-internationalization Speed: A Qualitative Study of Experiential and Analytical Information Processing

This article aims to explore how the decision-makers cognition affects the earliness and post-internationalization speed. Managerial cognition is evaluated through the lens of the dual-process theory, which assumes that human information processing is made by two cognitive systems: the intuitive System X and the analytical System C. This is a multiple case study framed in a small and open context such as the Portuguese footwear industry. The results suggest that, when deciding the first international entry, the decision-makers of the firms internationalizing earlier mostly relied on the intuitive cognitive system, while the decision-makers of the firm delaying the first entry showed a predominance of the analytical cognitive system. However, regardless of being early or later entrants, the sampled firms combine intuition with analysis to make the final decision about further involvement with foreign markets, resulting in a gradual and slower post-internationalization. Our in-depth analysis suggests that the Uppsala model could be questioned because the speed of the internationalization process seems to be governed by how decision-makers perceive a given reality based on its cognition.