Risk and Uncertainty in Internationalisation and International Entrepreneurship Studies: Review and Conceptual Development

• In this article we review how risk and uncertainty in the international expansion of the firm are treated in the internationalisation and international entrepreneurship literatures, including emerging research in both fields. • We conclude that there is need for a more nuanced treatment of risk and of uncertainty in the international expansion of firms in their interactions with each other. • We show that, despite the prevailing perspective in the literature, more uncertainties might be revealed and risk might increase with international experience, thereby inhibiting internationalisation, and in some cases inducing de-internationalisation. • We introduce the dynamic concepts of uncertainty acclimatisation and risk accommodation as a better recognition of how uncertainty and risk might alter over time. • Coevolution theory is drawn upon to conceptualise how the interaction and dynamics of perceptions of uncertainty and assessments of risk during the internationalisation process might be developed theoretically.