International gatekeepers: how to integrate domestic networks and international relations

Abstract

This research evaluates how firms develop an intermediary role, connecting their international experience with knowledge provided by the domestic network. These firms act as international gatekeepers, providing valuable knowledge about distant markets to their partners in the domestic network. By adopting a network perspective, we mapped from whom the firms obtain knowledge or the kind of relationship that each firm establishes with other members of the network, disentangling how the gatekeeper can, in fact, integrate international and domestic networks. Empirical evidence indicates that gatekeepers develop a domestic network based on closed relationships with domestic partners that have central positions but are not a real threat for them.