SMB Development and Growth Through Internationalisation Strategies
While it has for long been accepted that only a minority of smaller businesses will successfully enter international markets, the scope for supporting and increasing the international participation of SMBs has become a particular target of research and government business and economic policy in recent years. This new interest in SMB internationalisation is attributable to a number of factors, prime among which might be the increased pace of business globalisation, the advent of new technologies that are at least partly driven by SMB techno-entrepreneurs, and the growing assertiveness of a new breed of dynamic enterprises originating within the emerging economies. This paper seeks to widen discussion on the strategic rationale and commercial contribution of international business for smaller enterprises, and to examine the key decisions and activities that SMBs face in tackling international markets. Specifically, an attempt is made to indicate and illustrate typical practice through case study evidence centred on the internationalisation experiences of a sample of successful UK-based SMB exporters that the author has monitored through a number of research, consultancy and management development initiatives within the recent past. It is intended that these cases will collectively draft out the parameters of research issues to investigate on this topic, through a subsequent larger-scale comprehensive questionnaire-based research survey. This will involve a larger and more representative sample, spanning business sectors, enterprise age and size, international business commitments and market coverage, recent performance data and information. Again, it is hoped that the sample will cover also some SMBs newly involved in international business, and others with no international experience. Whilst the author accepts that this is strictly an interim report, it is hoped that the vignette examples to be provided within the paper and the presentation will demonstrate some of the creativity and flexibility that SMBs can exhibit within their dealings in international business. More specifically, the follow-up research that is planned will formally investigate in detail the causal relationships between international success and key activity variables such as strategic planning, market selection, promotion effort, entry channel architecture, product-service differentiation, and general factors such as staffing and resourcing inputs. Finally, the author sees the paper as a means of Small Business Assistance networking, and sharing with other conference attendees the experience that they have through small business research, consultancy and education programmes within an international context.
SMB development strategies SMB internationalisation
Al Halborg
Coventry University Business School, United Kingdom
国际会议
杭州
英文
161-165
2009-10-25（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）