Internationalization in a Context of Hype : A qualitative study of Swedish GenAI startups

Sammanfattning

As emerging technologies lead entrepreneurs to start new ventures and expand internationally, these fields sometimes attract high expectations or hype. While international business research has increasingly focused on contextualizing internationalization, little is known about how hype influences this process. Artificial intelligence, driven by recent advances in Generative AI, is one technology currently experiencing a hype. Using a qualitative design with semi-structured interviews of six GenAI startup founders, this study examines how startups navigate internationalization under hype conditions. The thematic analysis highlights product-market fit as a necessity before rapid internationalization. The findings indicate that the firms’ internationalization patterns follow established theories with a strong emphasis on networks, even in an environment of hype. Counterintuitively, founders prioritize product development even in perceived winner-takes-all markets with first-mover advantages. While the small sample size limits generalizability, our findings suggest that hype acts as an environmental accelerant that provides resources and access to networks, but does not fundamentally alter the cautious nature of the internationalization process.