Learning in SME Internationalization: A New Perspective on Learning From Success versus Failure

Abstract

Entrepreneurial small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a significant role in nearly all economies and are responsible for a significant proportion of cross-border transactions. In order to create and capture opportunities across borders, entrepreneurs in SMEs rely heavily on both self-and vicarious-and experience-based organizational learning. Although a significant percentage of the academic literature has concerned itself with learning from successful experience (or general experience), learning from failed experience (or learning from success versus failure) has receive much less attention. This is despite the fact that failure is generally more pervasive, particular with respect to SMEs, than success. In this paper, we review the extant knowledge on SME success-and failure-based learning from internationalization, with particular emphasis on how the two bases of learning interact. In addition, we relate the five focused issue articles that build on and extend this literature into a set of insightful theoretical and managerial contributions.

Context-specific micro-foundations and successful SME internationalisation in emerging markets: A mixed-method analysis of managerial resources and dynamic capabilities

“…Moreover, from a cross-country perspective, micro approaches and rationale for internationalisation have been presented and a theoretical framework has been designed in this regard via entrepreneurial action theory (Alonso & Kok, 2020). Some recent researches also investigated the main causes of success and failure in SMEs internationalisation (Lee et al, 2020).…”

Research Published in Management International Review from 2006 to 2020: A Bibliometric Analysis and Future Directions

“…The authors have continued to develop an understanding of culture (Taras et al, 2016 ) and cultural values (Jintae et al, 2016 ). In addition to the cultural values, other key themes explored by MIR authors during this time include knowledge sharing (Sinkovics et al, 2019 ) and R&D (Lee et al, 2020a , 2020b ) in a cross-cultural context. The journal continued to explore the different themes on cross-cultural context, and more recent research points toward several topics that may be explored in the future.…”

“…During the latest period (2016–2020), the MIR authors further developed the themes from the previous period. This is indicated by the focus on the relationship between internationalization speed and firm performance (Hilmersson & Johanson, 2016 ; Mohr & Batsakis, 2017 ) and, more recently, the learnings in SME internationalization (Lee et al, 2020a , 2020b ) and the role of social identity in the internationalization of family firms (Mondal et al, 2021 ; Wei et al, 2020 ). Topics related to family firms (Arregle et al, 2021 ; Casprini et al, 2020 ; Xu et al, 2020 ), SME internationalization (Lahiri et al, 2020 ), and ownership issues (Scalera et al, 2020 ) also became predominant in other IB journals.…”

Four Corners of the World: Project-Based Learning in a Multicultural Virtual Environment

“…Vicarious learning is now an accepted training approach that involves observing or hearing about others' actions or experiences. At the present time, vicarious learning is considered an important component of experiential learning (Hoover et al, 2012;Jimenez and De La Fuente, 2016;Lee et al, 2020;Reynolds et al, 2018;Wang and Lee, 2017). Vicarious learning is a key element of Bandura's social learning theory (Bandura, 1994), which underscores the role of observational learning and social experience in the development of a persona (student or employee).…”

“…That helps them build team cohesiveness and deliver good quality projects. Overall, virtual team work, less expensive but very effective combined with a strong cultural component, provides the transformational experience needed to thrive in a multicultural environment (Lee et al, 2020). From then on, the course was constantly evolving based on feedback from students, participating…”