Are You an Excellent International Entrepreneur?—Building a Competency Model of International Entrepreneurs Based on the Grounded Theory

Abstract

With the deepening of global economic integration process, the survival and development of enterprises is facing a severe test. An excellent international entrepreneur is the personification of the enterprise, undertaking the mission of making corporate development strategy, who can lead the enterprise to expand, innovate and achieve continuously in the multinational operation. In order to study the abilities and qualities of excellent international entrepreneurs, we conducted depth interviews with five professors from business school of universities, three industry experts, seven international entrepreneurs and eleven subordinates from several Chinese large multinational enterprises, receiving a large amount of the first and second-hand data. Then, we use grounded theory to process, match, classify and extract data by means of open coding, axial coding and selective coding, building a competency model of international entrepreneurs, including three main categories and seventeen sub-categories. The first main category is Knowledge, an objective evaluation, including three sub-categories, such as managerial professional knowledge, language proficiency and the knowledge of international business. The second main category is Ability, including eight sub-categories, such as the managerial competencies of international enterprises, cognitive ability of international market, the ability of international trade, the ability to adapt to the dynamic environment, the ability to integrate domestic and foreign resources, the ability to overcome crisis and risks, relationship ability with society and government and learning ability. The third main category is Personality, including six sub-categories, such as autonomy, innovation, change, advance cognition and action, competition enthusiasm and the spirit of adventure.