The Tension Between Growing and Maintaining Artistic Freedom - A multiple case study of Swedish craft breweries’ internationalisation process

Abstract

There is an assumption among the established internationalisation theories that a firm wants to grow and become more profitable. However, this might not be applicable to all industries. This study explores this problem through a multiple case study of six Swedish craft breweries. A goal ambiguity between growing and maintaining artistic freedom arises for the breweries as the competition in the home market has increased. In these cases, the breweries have decided to focus on growth and profitability before artistic freedom. Even though most of the breweries value artistic freedom, this has been partly neglected as more resources are allocated to the growth of the firm. The findings of this study show that growth seems to be a necessity to stay competitive in the beer industry market, and thus the tension between growth and artistic freedom is not as large as previous research have suspected. To maintain some of the artistic freedom, export is the natural choice of internationalisation mode as the breweries maintain a large part of the control of their product. To follow the existing internationalisation models would mean that the firm wants to continue the internationalisation process and subsequently move some of the manufacturing activities to the foreign market. However, to set up own subsidiaries abroad would mean a too large loss of control for many breweries, meaning that they do not follow traditional internationalisation models fully.