Paper info

Plug-in process: enter to a pre-existing well developed network: a specific situation in the internationalization process

Tibor MANDJAK and Milena Ratajczak-Mrozek

The paper was published at the 33rd IMP-conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2017.

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The paper is a first conceptual attempt, a thought experiment, to skeletonize the “plug-in process”, which is a specific situation in the internationalization process. One speaks about “plug-in process” when an outsider from a foreign network enters a pre-existing (well established) business network. It is the situation when the liability of foreignness is the main problem in market entry and when the liability of outsidership is the primary difficulty. Plug-in process is a specific case of internationalization because of the difference in social, cultural of economic development level between the outsider and the pre-existing business network. Plug-in is a firm level hypothetic concept of the specific type of network entry process that may relate to a network in a foreign country or in a wider region of countries. Combining IMP network approach and relevant parts of firm internationalization literature, two new concepts, network readiness and network eligibility are developed to frame the plug-in process.