Scaling Across the Atlantic: A Case Study of Merchery’s Strategic Expansion into the North American Market: Internal and External Factors Shaping a European Start-Up’s Entry into the North American Market

Details

Supervisors

Pouchain, Frédéric

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences de gestion, à finalité spécialisée
Master [120] en sciences de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

enThis thesis examines the international expansion readiness of early internationalising firms through an in-depth case study of Merchery, a Brussels-based sustainable merchandise company, and its expansion into North America. While internationalisation literature has extensively explored the drivers and processes of foreign expansion, less attention has been devoted to integrating external market execution demands and internal organisational capabilities into a structured readiness perspective for early internationalising firms. This study therefore examines how external market complexity and internal organisational capabilities jointly shape international expansion readiness in operationally demanding foreign markets. The research draws on internationalisation process theory, entrepreneurial internationalisation, dynamic capabilities, organisational learning, ecosystem literature, and the resource-based view to construct a three-pillar analytical framework. Using an exploratory mixed-methods approach, the study combines a qualitative single-case-study analysis with comparative survey benchmarking involving European early internationalising firms. The findings suggest that sustained internationalisation depends less on market entry readiness alone and more on the firm’s ability to absorb external complexity through internally scalable organisational capabilities. Merchery’s initial North American expansion exposed weaknesses related to managerial structure, coordination mechanisms, capability transferability, and organisational learning institutionalisation. However, subsequent strategic adjustments, including more deliberate resource deployment, leadership maturation, and revised location choices, contributed to a more calibrated expansion approach. The survey findings further suggest that higher overall readiness levels do not consistently translate into stronger host-market outcomes. Instead, operational viability, institutional adaptation, execution stability, and the ability to recalibrate structures and processes after entry emerged as more relevant differentiators between more resilient and weaker expansion cases. The thesis contributes to internationalisation literature by integrating external market complexity and internal organisational capabilities into a structured readiness framework for early internationalising firms. The findings further suggest that overall readiness is most useful as a configurational diagnostic of alignment between external execution demands and internal capability maturity, rather than as a direct predictor of internationalisation success. Practically, the study highlights the importance of organisational maturity, scalable operating capabilities, financial absorbability, and learning institutionalisation before committing to resource-intensive foreign expansion.