Concluding remarks
We analyze the influence of customer relationshipsin driving interdependences in the internationalization process of the firm. We propose the following causal path: customer relationships affect the interdependences between the firm’s international trajectories. As a result, the internationalization process of the firm as a whole will be a consequence of some interdependent international trajectories. Thisreasoning isillustrated in a qualitative, retrospective and embedded case of a Brazilian born-global firm that entered and evolved in five foreign markets in less than a decade. We found that customer relationships played a role in the internationalization process of this firm in that they induced some of the internationalizing firm’s international trajectories to become interdependent in various temporal contexts. Based on these findings, our contribution to the literature is twofold. First, we propose a rather new picture of the internationalization process of the firm as comprising a number of international trajectories. In doing so, we suggest that interdependences between these international trajectories are likely to arise. Overall, the internationalization process of the firm will be shaped by these interdependences. Secondly, we point out that customer relationships are a generative mechanism of the interdependences between the firm’sinternational trajectories. In this regard, we supplement the extant studies of customer relationshipsin the internationalization process ofthe firmby suggesting that their influence goes beyond the decisions about foreign market and entry mode (Loane & Bell, 2009; Majkgård & Sharma, 1998). They can act also as a driver of the interdependences between the firm’s international trajectories.
