Internationalisation Check

Test your business against the gates that matter before your first foreign market or a new wave of markets. You finish with a verdict you can defend, a short list of fixes and a date to check again.

Mixed evidence. The stepwise Uppsala model (Johanson & Vahlne, 1977) is influential but revised by its authors and challenged by born-global firms (Knight & Cavusgil, 2004); Dunning's four motives are an organizing scheme, better for forcing clarity than for prediction. The gates and the 1 to 5 scale are rules of thumb.

Use it when:

• You are about to enter your first country outside your home market.
• You plan a larger expansion wave, and the first market did not go the way you assumed.
• Someone has said "let's go to Germany" and you want to test the idea before the plan is written.

Skip it when:

• You have not yet chosen where: start with 7.11 Market Screening Table.
• You are ready and need to choose how to enter: go to 7.12 Entry Mode & Local vs Global.

The classic claim is that going international is a learning process, not a leap. Johanson and Vahlne (1977) described firms deepening commitment step by step as market knowledge grew: knowledge lowers perceived risk, and each commitment produces the knowledge that funds the next. The evidence is mixed. The model has been revised by its own authors and challenged by research on born-global firms, which internationalize from or near founding (Knight & Cavusgil, 2004). Read the stepwise picture as one well-documented path, not a law.

The motives line uses the four-motive scheme (market, resource, efficiency and strategic asset seeking) from Dunning's work on the eclectic paradigm (restated in Dunning, 1988). Ask for the motive first, because an entry that cannot name its motive usually has none. The gates encode the logic that commitments should not outrun knowledge and capacity. And the failure this page guards against is scoring readiness on home-market strength instead of on what the target market will demand.

Say why this market and what you want from it. A motive you cannot name usually means the entry is a hope.

Strong answer: "Market-seeking: the home market is nearly saturated, and Germany is the closest large market where our product needs little change. Pilot within 12 months." Not: "Growth."

Target country or region:

Why this market:

Motive (market, efficiency, resource or strategic asset seeking):

Time horizon:

Illustrative example: the business is made up. It carries on through 7.11 and 7.12.

A Swedish family-owned producer of oat-based drinks, strong in Swedish grocery, considers Germany within 12 months. Motive: market-seeking.

Weakest capability items: German-language service and local labeling. Call: ready with fixes. Run a 90-day sprint on labeling checks with a local adviser and a German-language service line, then a pilot with one retail chain. Retest the gates in 90 days.