This research explores business internationalisation as a process of recognising and exploiting business
opportunities in an international context and uses Spain’s natural stone industry as a case study. We differentiate
internationalisation into two stages: opportunity identification and subsequent opportunity
exploitation.Wefocus on the initial identification stage to determine the impact of entrepreneurs’ cognitive
variables when gathering relevant information for internationalisation of the firm, highlighting the
role of entrepreneurs’ alertness, the centre of interest, causal logic, and prior experience. We also examine
the importance of the entrepreneur’s environment, social networks, and institutional setting. In our
empirical analysis, we find that although interested in internationalisation, entrepreneurs in the natural
stone industry devote very little time and effort to gathering information. As a result, decisions related to
internationalisation are restricted by uncertainty and a poor understanding of the appeal, barriers, and
available support services.