Beyond connectivity: Artificial intelligence and the internationalisation of digital firms

Peter Williamson is Emeritus Professor of International Management at the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School and Fellow of Jesus College.

Abstract: With the rapid development of artificial intelligence/machine learning technologies (AI/ML) it is now opportune to consider the potential for these technologies to create new strategies for internationalisation. In this paper we examine the implications of deploying AI technologies on the internationalisation process of firms. We show how firms can create digital interactions from which information about individual’s revealed preferences can be imputed. The use of this information by a proprietary AI model, rather than using FDI designed to learn about the characteristics of country markets as proxies to predict the general behaviour of consumers located there, provides a new, country-agnostic way to enter foreign markets and adapt to differences among consumers based on segments of one. AI can, therefore, enable born-digital firms, and potentially other businesses where digitalisation can play a role, to build new kinds of competitive advantages based on data network effects. We illustrate these theoretical propositions with reference to value-creation activities of the short-video streaming born-digital TikTok.

Biography  

Peter Williamson is Emeritus Professor of International Management at the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School and Fellow of Jesus College.

Peter divides his time between research, teaching, and consulting on internationalisation, M&A, and business ecosystem innovation, and serving as a non-executive director or chairman.

With a first degree in Economics, he began his business career with Merrill Lynch in London. After completing his PhD in Business Economics at Harvard University in 1984, he joined the Boston Consulting Group.

During his subsequent academic a career, he has held professorships at London Business School, Harvard Business School, and INSEAD (in Fontainebleau and Singapore). He was elected Fellow of the Academy of International Business in 2018 in recognition of his contribution to the field.

In parallel, Peter has served as a non-executive director of both listed and private companies across a wide variety of industries, including: textiles; whisky; green energy; hedge funds; software; and sales training. He is currently Chairman of the fast-growing, digital process automation cloud services company Bizagi Group Inc.

Peter has also been visiting China regularly since 1983, assisting numerous multinationals, joint ventures, and Chinese companies venturing abroad.

He is the author of ten books, his latest being: Ecosystem Edge: Sustaining Competitiveness in the Face of Disruption. Other books include: The Competitive Advantage of Emerging Market Multinationals; Dragons at Your Door; Winning in Asia; and From Global to Metanational. His more than 60 other articles span Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, and Journal of Industrial Economics, and managerial pieces such as “Ecosystem Advantage: How to successfully harness the power of partners”; “The New Mission for Multinationals”, “Accelerated Innovation”, “Strategies for Competing in a Changed China” and “Is Your Innovation Process Global?” (all in the MIT-Sloan Management Review) and “How China Re-Set Its Global Acquisition Agenda”, “China’s Hidden Dragons”, and “How to Monetize a Business Ecosystem” (all in Harvard Business Review).