We contribute to the discussion on internationalization speed (IS) by looking at it through a firm’s development through changing historical contexts over a period of 150 years. In practice, we explore how a firm’s internationalization timing, pace and rhythm varied in connection to major trade regime changes. To provide contextualized explanation of the IS, we draw from imprinting theory to depict how the founding context was imprinted in the firm and if and how the original imprint persisted and got new manifestations in critical junctures over time. As a result, we depicted the imprint of geopolitical synchronization defined as the way of acting imprinted at founding on the organization and through its manifestations amidst external changes providing explanation of the firm’s IS. We show about trade regime changes through managerial reasoning how different manifestations of the original imprint emerged in the critical junctures. This altogether builds a contextualized understanding of IS.

We examine the impact of transitions in geographic diversification strategies on firm performance using a longitudinal Difference-in-Differences analysis. Our results show that the impact of geographic diversification is path-dependent and is decisively influenced by the strategy of product diversification. Contrary to extant research, we find the negative impact of a strategy of unrelated geographical diversification to be most detrimental in the case of a single-product strategy. Furthermore, we show that firm-specific assets exacerbate the negative effect of unrelated geographical diversification. Our findings challenge the knowledge-based perspective of MNCs as an efficient vehicle for the internalized transfer of knowledge.

Regulatory changes induced by host governments may have a notable impact on multinational enterprises (MNEs) strategic choices and political activities. These emerging responses are traditionally seen to be either adaptive or proactive. As a third option, however, an MNE can also make a strategic choice of withholding a concrete response for strategic reasons – to maintain strategic flexibility, for instance. This study draws from the concept of 'strategic forbearance' to understand such responses within corporate political activities (CPA) of MNEs. Employing a microhistorical approach, our analysis of rich archival data from the Guinness archives reveals that Guinness's forbearance did not mean standing idle. We show how strategic forbearance (1) involved an active utilization of different CPA tactics, (2) was driven by the interrelated dynamics of these underlying CPA tactics where any given tactic shaped other tactics’ boundaries, motivations, and goals, and (3) was shaped by the different characteristics of passiveness, materialized, and considered CPA tactics. Thus, we advance the CPA literature by explicating how strategic forbearance emerges as a viable response strategy to regulatory changes.