Internationalization in a Greek manufacturing group: Organizational and cultural learning processes

Historically American internationalization research has focused both on the individuals' inability to adapt in international settings and on the organizational variables of structure and strategy to increase profit. This research develops a model that focuses on the learning processes that provide benefits to both the individual and organization engaged in their internationalization processes. Its findings have relevance because of the refraining of the individual internationalization processes from one of behavior only, to include the thinking parts of the learning process, providing a more holistic view of what this process is. The findings explore the internationalization process from an organizational context that includes an explicit pattern of learning with the human element. In addition to structure and strategy, these findings suggest an increased competitive advantage might be achieved by organizations through a stronger link with the benefits that members can provide collectively.;Findings explaining how culture influences the learning process and the organization's ability to change for continuing internationalization efforts. Specifically, it indicates the nature of internationalization processes and how the human resource function plays a role. The findings explain how the organization views information and knowledge gained from experience filtered through the Greek culture.;A case study was conducted in a Greek-owned manufacturing group based in Athens, Greece that for 12 years had been actively engaged in internationalization through a greenfield start-up in Egypt, and acquisitions in Hungary and Bulgaria. Thirteen interviews were conducted with English-speaking Greek members of the organization who gained their international experience working for the company. Interviews were triangulated with participant observation, document, and artifact review. Theory development was the result of grounded theory analysis with the data and two untested learning theories. Results extend the work of Briody (Briody & Baba, 1994; Briody, Baba, & Cooper, 1995; Briody & Chrisman, 1991) on the human processes in an internationalizing organization, Eisenhart (1995) on how people influence organizations, and Taylor (1994) on individual cultural competency.