A good amount of past research in internationalization theory has been concerned with the characteristics of the finn. The research tended to focus on the finn's internal features, like age or size, and its likely impact on export perfonnance (Dean et aI., 2000; Javalgi et aI., 2000). The impacts of external factors, such as the overall business environment, export environment, or industry, have also been examined (Kaynak & Kuan, 1 993 ; Miesenbock, 1 988; Stewart & McAuley, 2000). More recently the research focus has shifted towards the export manager as the unit of investigation. This trend is accompanied by an increased attention to small finn research, as many of today's successful export finns display features of medium, small, or very small finns. Finns in New Zealand employing fewer than fifty pennanent staff have, in most cases, just one person in charge of the export function. This is especially true for very small finns where most often the owner manager is solely responsible for all major decisions and this includes, of course, the decision to export. In situations where the export decision lies with more than one person - as is the case for larger finns and MNCs - the research situation becomes more complex and reliable results are more difficult to establish. In contrast, many studies focus on the decision-making person, such as the owner operator of born global finns or the international entrepreneur (McDougall & Oviatt, 2000; Zahra & George, 2002).
Many studies have been undertaken in order to investigate the characteristics of the human factor in the internationalization process: export manager, general manager, or Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Earlier research tended to treat the manager as part
of the firm, a stereotypical and replaceable agent reacting in a preconceived way to the economic demands made upon them. Researchers, such as Sarasvanthy (2004), criticised the fact that research focused on the survival and performance of the firm and not on the personal achievement of the individual person. It resulted in increased research on international entrepreneurship. The international entrepreneur has been accredited as being the foremost component that determines success in the internationalization process (Coviello & Jones, 2004; Mathews & Zander, 2007; McDougall & Oviatt, 2000). It applies even more so to small firms where the boundaries between the person in charge of export and the business owner are often blurred. In fact, in many cases the business owner and the entrepreneurial manager is the same person.
Indeed, some scholars postulate that the study of international entrepreneurship should lie at the intersection of the disciplines of entrepreneurship and international business (McDougall & Oviatt, 2000). A number of academics have gone further and suggest that international entrepreneurship should belong to the core of the international business research agenda (Baker, Gedajlovic, & Lubatkin, 2005; McDougall & Oviatt, 2000; Zahra & George, 2002).
Theoretical insights about entrepreneurs or entrepreneurship can be traced back to the early 20th century literature (Hayek, 1 945; F. H. Knight, 1 92 1 ; Schumpeter, 1 934). One of the first descriptions of the entrepreneur came from Schumpeter ( 1 950) as being somebody combining a firm's resources in new ways. In most cases entrepreneurs start up new businesses. Many contemporary scholars (Rumelt, 2005) define the entrepreneur as somebody who creates a new business or duplicates an existing one by adding some element of innovation or novelty. For Rumelt (2005), however, it is imperative that true entrepreneurs possess the ability to develop an innovative product, develop a new way of marketing or promoting this product and acquire sufficient resources to do so successfully.
There has been a great deal of discussion about what kind of character traits these people need to possess in order to do well as entrepreneurs. Some research looks at the behavioural features of the entrepreneur to distinguish the successful from the unsuccessful. An underlying wish driving it is to make predictions possible as to who
has potential and is likely to become an entrepreneur. Behavioural theorists note that the human motives for success are economical as well as non-economical. The range of behaviours extends into other domains also. For example, some entrepreneurs seek instant gratification and others work for delayed gratification, while again some are other-regarding and others self-regarding. In all, it appears that entrepreneurs come in all shapes and forms. Researchers report also the ability of international entrepreneurs to build up trusting and long lasting relationships with customers and distributors. They are able to maintain access to effective networks (Leonidou, Katsikeas, & Hadjimarcou, 2002). Another significant feature which many authors agree upon is that successful international entrepreneurs are equipped with a so called "sixth sense" to discover opportunities for export and international trade in world markets which most other individuals would not detect (Crick & Spence, 2005). Sarasvathy (200 1 ) develops this concept further and introduces what she terms the effectuation theory. Sarasvathy (200 1 ) differentiates between effectual thinking and causal thinking where decision making is based on a pre-defined goal with a plan to achieve this very goal. On the other hand effectual thinking takes place where the means are fixed and mostly limited and the goals emerge contingently over time depending on the personality of the thinker and decision maker. Although effectuation theory is developed with the entrepreneur in mind to explain entrepreneurial creativity and prowess this concept has relevance to other fields, such as strategy, organisational, management and knowledge theory.