Small firm internationalisation: an investigative survey and future research directions

Abstract

Surveys the literature on internationalisation research and identifies a number of theoretical and practical inadequacies in terms of current theory’s ability in describing behaviour of the smaller firm. A range of internationalisation theories are discussed, from their historical provenance in economic trade theory to the more recent developments concerning the impact of technology and networking. It is concluded that the majority of frameworks fail to readily explain smaller firm internationalisation behaviour. A number of implications and recommendations are presented, including the promotion of the belief that the emerging marketing and entrepreneurship paradigm provides additional understanding of smaller firm internationalisation, where creativity and innovative behaviour can act as a competitive advantage over firms with larger resources at their disposal. This then acts as a catalyst for internationalisation development.

The Internationalisation Process of the Smaller Firm: An Examination of the Craft Microenterprise

“…Key research themes relating to the exporting SME include the investigation of the process itself [36,37], market entry and the role of the decision maker [38], SMEs and globalisation [39], exporting stimuli [40], export problems and barriers [41,42], the link between firm/managerial characteristics and exporting competencies [43] and export stimulation measures [44]. Other issues investigated include comparisons of non-exporters versus exporters [45], networking and the entrepreneurial exporter [15,46], the impact of the internet on SME domestic and export behaviour [47], export market information gathering [48] and the use of creativity to overcome resource constraints [49].…”

A Comparative Analysis of Polish and Czech International New Ventures

“…In contrast to the firms internationalizing according to the Uppsala model (Johanson & Vahlne, 1977), the companies referred to as International New Ventures -INVs (McDougall, Shane & Oviatt, 1994), global startups (Oviatt & McDougall, 1995), instant internationals (Fillis, 2001) or Born Globals (Knight & Cavusgil, 1996;Gabrielsson et al, 2008) leapfrog some of the internationalization stages and are highly active in international markets nearly from the outset. The main traits of INVs are: the global vision, the international business competence of their managers and poverty of resources at the time of start-up (McDougall, Shane & Oviatt, 1994;McDougall & Oviatt, 1994;Knight & Cavusgil, 2004).…”

The Effects of the Degree of Internationalization on Export Performance: A Research on Exporters in Turkey

“…Although the continuity of the internationalization process is in interaction with the export stimuli (Sullivan and Bauerschmidt, 1988;Fillis, 2001), factors such as foreign language knowledge, adaptation to foreign market cultures, adaptation to legal systems, financial strength (Acs et al, 1997), communication with foreign customers (Bauerschmidt et al, 1985), and company differentiation (O'Grady and Lane, 1996) play a decisive role in the internationalization process of companies. Especially in the first stage of internationalization, foreign market knowledge plays an important role (Diamantopoulos et al, 1990).…”