Market entry strategies of successful entrepreneurs: The effects of risk propensity and risk perceptions

Among the most critical elements in the development of any new venture are the entrepreneur's analyses and decisions regarding entry into new and sometimes uncharted markets. The new market entry decision has been studied by marketing scholars from the perspectives of both the consumer (cf, Alpert and Kamins 1995; Carpenter and Nakamoto 1989) and the manager (Golder and Tellis 1993; Kerin, Varadarajan, and Peterson 1992). Indeed, recent articles in marketing journals have explored the relationships between entry strategy and performance (Green, Barclay, and Ryans 1995), order of market entry and performance (Szymanski, Troy, and Bharadwaj 1995) and managerial skill and the realization of pioneering advantage (Murthi, Srinivasan, and Kalyanaram 1996). However, considering that market entry decisions are arguably among the riskiest decisions that marketing managers and entrepreneurs make, it is surprising that there are no recent articles in marketing journals that consider the relationship between the risk entailed in market entry decisions and the implications of risk for formulating market entry strategies.