International business decisions and manager’s cognitive style: opening up research avenues from cognitive behavioural strategy

The topics of internationalization and cognitive styles have been investigated extensively in an unrelated manner over decades. From the latter psycho-sociological approach, it can be stated that the decision maker cognitive characteristics have an impact on the organization’s strategic decisions. Meanwhile, the former perspective has emphasized the issue of internationalization as a process that strongly relies on gaining experiential knowledge. This conceptual paper aims to enlighten the influence and interaction of the manager’s cognitive style on international business (IB) decisions of small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs). Two main theoretical approaches explaining the internationalization process of SMEs are compared: the Uppsala gradual model and the International New Ventures-INVs approach. The main research question is whether there is a cognitive style that always outperforms the others when it comes to the internationalization pattern the SME follows, or whether the optimal style is dependent on the task and the context (i.e. the pattern of the internationalization the SME choses). Some propositions and research avenues are suggested as new findings are continuously emerging relative to how the human brain works in this promising intersection labeled as organizational neuroscience in the quest of the micro-foundations of the theory of internationalization.