Given the growing trend of using digital platforms for exporters' internationalization, the management of exporters' online internationalization has become a critical issue. However, academic research in this area remains sparse. Specifically, little is known about when and under what conditions exporters may consider discontinuing the use of a digital platform for exporting, i.e., online de-internationalization. This study develops and tests a theoretical framework for these determinants and the contingencies for exporters' online de-internationalization. Specifically, drawing on the de-internationalization literature, we identify sets of internal and external antecedents of exporters' intention to discontinue the use of digital platforms for exporting. Furthermore, we examine the moderating effect of technological opportunism. Based on a unique sample of Chinese exporters registered on Alibaba.com, the world's largest business-to-business platform, the empirical findings support our proposed determinants of online de-internalization. This article ultimately discusses the theoretical and managerial implications.

Managerial networking with political actors has long been recognized as a crucial co-option strategy to navigate the challenging institutional environment in emerging economies. However, we know much less about what drives the variation of political networking investment by private ventures. Drawing on resource dependence theory, we unpack the dyadic business-government relations and identify the key organizational and environmental factors that shape the power dependence relationships between private ventures and the government. By examining power imbalance and mutual dependence in this dyadic relationship and considering both the necessity and the capability of political networking, we develop hypotheses regarding the ways in which size-, connection-, and location-based dependencies affect firms’ political networking intensity. These hypotheses are tested through a unique survey of Chinese private ventures. Our study finds that political networking intensity (1) has an inverted U-shaped relationship with firm size, (2) is negatively associated with the presence of embedded political ties while positively associated with that of achieved political connections, and (3) is smaller when the focal firm is located in business development zones. This research bears rich implications for our understanding of corporate political activity in emerging economies from a resource dependence lens.

Conventional wisdom suggests that new ventures can employ a combination of two general strategies to confront the challenges of operating in transition economies or regions known for their weak institutional conditions: These ventures may succeed by enacting a market-orientation strategy, which focuses on providing value to customers and implementing rapid responses to competitive situations. They can also engage in a more traditional political-networking strategy that engages government officials, which may yield public resources and enhance their organizational legitimacy. However, research results are inconclusive regarding the effectiveness of these strategies when they are combined in a hybrid form. We argue that the advantages of a hybrid strategy are contingent on the perception of a specific condition: dysfunctional competition. In our analysis of new venture performance in China, we show that political networking indeed amplifies the positive influence of market-orientation strategies on performance, but only in contexts where dysfunctional competition is perceived to be low. When such competition is high, political networking becomes counterproductive, diverting attention away from swift responses to market demands. By addressing how multiple strategies work together, we offer insights into the extent to which the effectiveness of hybrid strategies – incorporating both market-orientation and political-networking – depend on the context in which they are implemented.