Purpose – A multinational firm’s expansion in a foreign market is a key issue of internationalbusiness. The purpose of this study is to extend the understanding of essential drivers that will facilitatefirm’s assessment of alternative modes of sequential expansion.

Design/methodology/approach – The study applies the knowledge-based view and explores amultinational firm’s sequential post-entry expansion in a foreign market. Event histories of Swedishindustrial firms’ establishments of wholly owned subsidiaries in Germany, the UK and the USA wereexplored using Cox regression.

Findings – Broad market experiences stemming from corporate strategy and deep experiences fromthe preceding subsidiary increase the likelihood of a sequential investment. Effects of broad experiencesare contingent on the context specified by the geographic scope of the firm and its general subsidiaryexperience.

Research limitations/implications – The study contributes to international expansion theory andintegrates sources of knowledge originating from strategy theory and internationalization theory. Thestudy shows that the dual approach is needed to understand international expansion.

Practical implications – In evaluating a further subsidiary investment in a foreign market, themultinational firm is advised to assess whether it possesses enough market experiences to justify theinvestment. The experiences should be associated with corporate strategy, the previous wholly ownedsubsidiary and the context specifications identified in the study.

Originality/value – The study is unique, as it addresses the simultaneous impact of broad and deepmarket experiences. Also, the inclusion of central context specifications makes the study novel.