Paths and geographic scope of international expansion across industries

•We investigate how firms’ international expansion paths and their geographic scope differ across industries over time.•We classify firms into three generic paths of international expansion based on industry characteristics (i.e., institution-driven, capability-driven, and linkage-driven).•We investigate the differences in three generic international expansion paths and geographic scope with descriptive and growth curve analyses.•The results show that firms operating in institution-driven industries mostly expand their upstream activity internationally, but their geographic scope is limited. In contrast, those in capability- and linkage-driven industries mainly expand their downstream international activities, potentially beyond a regional geographic boundary.•Firms across industries have taken distinctive paths of international expansion with the substantially different geographic scope of their operations.