Purpose

Top-management-teams (TMTs) and chief executive officers (CEOs) dealing with internationalization are naturally predisposed to deal with space, so they will consult “spatial knowledge.” The purpose of this paper is to offer a conceptual description of spatial knowledge used by TMTs/CEOs and to describe how the use of spatial knowledge can be triggered and the resulting biases that arise from it. The description of spatial knowledge is also discussed in relation to core international business (IB) theories/models.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual study.

Findings

TMTs/CEOs use spatial knowledge for internationalization decisions. This spatial knowledge is “declarative” because it involves knowledge of places and associated characteristics or attributes, “configurational” because it involves knowledge of various types of relative positions and proximities between places and “procedural” because it involves knowledge of how to structure transactions, operate or organize interdependencies between locations. Additionally, TMTs/CEOs individually have spatial knowledge that is uniquely distorted. Then, finally, when TMTs/CEOs consult spatial knowledge to identify international opportunities or solutions, their search process may entail distance and directional biases as a result of their spatial knowledge.

Originality/value

This is the first paper to introduce the notion of “spatial knowledge” to the research on TMT/CEO experiences and internationalization and IB research in general.

中文翻译：

---

高层管理团队和首席执行官在国际化中使用的“空间知识”概念

目的

处理国际化的高层管理团队 (TMT) 和首席执行官 (CEO) 自然倾向于处理空间问题，因此他们会咨询“空间知识”。本文的目的是对 TMT/CEO 使用的空间知识进行概念性描述，并描述如何触发空间知识的使用以及由此产生的偏差。空间知识的描述也与核心国际商业 (IB) 理论/模型有关。

设计/方法/方法

这是一个概念研究。

发现

TMT/CEO 使用空间知识进行国际化决策。这种空间知识是“陈述性的”，因为它涉及地点和相关特征或属性的知识，“配置性的”，因为它涉及各种类型的相对位置和地点之间的邻近性的知识，以及“程序性的”，因为它涉及如何构建事务的知识，操作或组织位置之间的相互依赖关系。此外，TMT/CEO 各自拥有独特扭曲的空间知识。最后，当 TMT/CEO 咨询空间知识以识别国际机会或解决方案时，他们的搜索过程可能会由于他们的空间知识而导致距离和方向偏差。

原创性/价值

这是第一篇将“空间知识”概念引入 TMT/CEO 经验和国际化研究以及一般 IB 研究的论文。