The aim of this paper is to enhance our knowledge on how executive expectation affect the firm’s internationalisation process, namely, by offering explanations to sudden major investments/ divestments that deviate the process from commonly presumed incrementality. The theoretical view developed in this study is founded upon Johanson and Vahlne’s (1977) internationalisation process model and complemented with the concept of executive expectation. Through a longitudinal comparative case study, enriched with archival data and interviews, this paper emphasises the dynamics of the firm’s internationalisation process. This aids to provide some answers on how changes in the composition of executives, such as the replacement of key personnel, can drive the firm’s internationalisation process into a different path when succeeding executives do not share similar expectations to their predecessors.