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Mapping network development of international new ventures with the use of company e-mails

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Abstract

International new ventures use e-mail frequently to communicate with globally dispersed contacts. In this paper we present and discuss a qualitative research method to map international network development based on company e-mails. Our approach also allows for combinations of inductive and deductive analysis and combines the possibility of content analysis and descriptive statistics with sensemaking through qualitative analysis of the narratives unfolding in the e-mail chains between the firm and its alters. We discuss these issues and examine to what extent and how structural and relational network variables and dimensions can be examined using e-mails and why this is relevant. In this discussion e-mails are also triangulated with and compared to other sources of data. The data used to exemplify our method are taken from an in-depth case study of a Dutch International New Venture.

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Notes

  1. For a complete analysis of this case study, we refer to Wakkee (2004).

  2. It should be noted though that the personal focus of e-mails can vary considerably. Depending on whether an e-mail is personal and being sent to only one or a small group of individuals or impersonal and sent to a large number of e-mail addresses (e.g., spam).

  3. This is probably the largest difference compared to using paper correspondence as a source of data (i.e., Thomas and Znaniecki 1918 and their classical case study on the Polish Peasant in Europe and America).

  4. The additional alters that we identified from the triangulation with the other data sources were not included in the analysis of the other variables as clearly the e-mails would not provide any information that could help in measuring these variables.

  5. In our case many alters were multinational companies themselves. If this were the case, we listed the country where the individual alter was located rather than the location of the MNE’s headquarters.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the extensive and valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper of the anonymous reviewers of the Journal of International Entrepreneurship and like to thank Aard Groen, Peter Groenewegen, and Paul Kirwan for their suggestions. Their comments have helped us to improve the arguments in this paper as well as to solve language and style issues.

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  1. Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1081, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Ingrid Wakkee

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Wakkee, I. Mapping network development of international new ventures with the use of company e-mails. J Int Entrepr 4, 191–208 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10843-007-0008-0

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