Going regional:internationalisation strategies of Ghanaian service companies within the ECOWAS market

Abstract This paper investigates the internationalisation strategies of Ghanaian service companies within the economic community of West African States (ECOWAS) market. The topic was necessitated by the increasing interest in the study of internationalisation processes of local firms in this era of globalisation, which hitherto was the preserve of multinational enterprises from the developed world. There is very little research on internationalisation processes of firms within the developing economy context as most of the existing literature is biased towards the developed economy context especial in the UK and USA. This paper examines the internationalisation strategies of Ghanaian service companies within the ECOWAS market in order to determine the key strategies adopted by Ghanaian service companies when expanding their operations abroad. The research was based on three case studies of service-oriented firms in Ghana using semi-structured interviews. Data was analysed using cross-case synthesis. Key strategies such as modes of entry of the three companies were analysed. The results of this study validates previous studies such as the Uppsala model which suggests that companies often expand their operations internationally on incremental and gradual fashion, and the eclectic paradigm which contends that three major sets of factors that are interdependent will influence the extent, industrial composition and geography of foreign production undertaken by a firm. Implications are also drawn for service companies, policy makers and researchers.