With the aim of bridging the gap between the firm’s internationalization speed research and the emerging study of business intelligence (BI), this study draws on knowledge transformation as the theoretical lens for exploring how business intelligence leverages organizational agility to promote the speed of internationalization. By analyzing data collected from 258 Chinese firms in the Yangtze River Delta area, we conclude that: (1) Business intelligence has a significant influence on the speed of internationalization, and the organizational agility positively mediates such causal relationship. (2) Cultural distance negatively moderates the relation between organizational agility and speed of internationalization. The managerial implications of these findings and future research directions regarding the firm’s internationalization speed are discussed.

Introduction

With the intensified international competition, the accelerating internationalization has been becoming an increasingly important route to competitive advantage for international companies (Hilmersson & Johanson, 2016; Lin & Si, 2019; Tan & Mathews, 2015). firms eagerly seeking to participate in international business are on the rise (Johanson & Kalinic, 2016), with the expectation that a faster internationalization strategy will facilitate them to seize fresh opportunities, enter into potentially global niches, and build first-mover advantages (Acedo & Jones, 2007; Jiang, Beamish, & Makino, 2014; Vermeulen & Barkema, 2002). The firm’s speed of internationalization, a key aspect of international strategic decision-making, has become an important issue for expanding international markets (Chetty, Johanson, & Martín, 2014; Coviello & Cox, 2006; Prashantham & Young, 2011). It is particularly relevant for Chinese companies, which usually have strong motivations to catch up with competitors from developed markets as quickly as possible (Cheng & Yang, 2017; Deng, 2012). Recently, the internationalization speed literature has increasingly shifted focus onto the relationship between a firm’s internationalization speed and its international performance (García-García, García-Canal, & Guillén, 2017; Jain, Celo, & Kumar, 2019; Sea-Jin & Jay Hyuk, 2011). These emerging studies confirm the importance of experiential knowledge that promotes the firm’s speed of internationalization by extracting such knowledge from embodied experience, such as operational experience and trust-building (Johanson & Vahlne, 1977, 2009).