Internationalization process of a mobile operator: Case of Zain Telecom

This paper deals with the target country, market and timing factors potentially influencing the transaction costs of a company in its international ventures, which are used as transaction cost proxies, based on “Determinants of Mobile Network Operators´ Choice of Cross-Border Entry Modes”. In addition, they are assigned as corresponding hypotheses in order to test their effect on Zain Telecom´s entry mode choices. This model did not seem to explain all factors influencing the entry mode choices of Zain Telecom, since not only many hypotheses were rejected, but also they did not match with the findings of Gerpott and Jakopin for mobile operators in the Western world. Hence, in order to understand the managerial drivers in Zain Telecom´s decision-making, a holistic framework MEMS (Market and Market Entry Mode Selection) model was used. This framework shed the light on many of the managerial facets of Zain´s strategical decision-making and answered the following question: How did target country, market, and timing factors contribute in shaping Zain Telecom´s cross-border entry mode choices? Of course, for optimal and overall decision making, this research should be enriched with engineering analysis and techniques.