Competitive Pressure and the Moderating Role of the Knowledge Network on Internationalization Intent of Indian State-owned Enterprises

The incumbent State-owned Enterprises (SOE) are dominant players in the home markets. New entrants’ arrival challenges the SOEs’ market dominance while the technology discontinuity challenges the technical leadership by obsoleting the existing technology. This study focuses on the effect of these competitive pressures on the internationalization intent of the Indian SOEs. The incumbent firms develop a knowledge network in technical and market aspects by working with the partners, the suppliers and the buyers. The study also focuses on the moderating effect of the knowledge networks. This study uses structured equation modelling using the partial least squares technique as the analytical technique. The results confirm the positive effect of technological discontinuity on the internationalization intent. In contrast, new entrants had no such effect. The study also confirms the positive moderating influence of the knowledge network on the effect of technological discontinuity on the internationalization intent.