Prelims

Half Title Page

Key Success Factors of SME Internationalisation

Series Page

International Business & Management

Series Editor: Pervez N. Ghauri

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• Euro Med Journal of Business

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Title Page

International Business & Management Volume 34

KEY SUCCESS FACTORS OF SME INTERNATIONALISATION: A CROSS-COUNTRY PERSPECTIVE

EDITED BY

NOÉMIE DOMINGUEZ

University of Lyon, France

ULRIKE MAYRHOFER

University of Lyon, France

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

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First edition 2018

Copyright © 2018 Emerald Publishing Limited

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78754-278-5

ISBN: 978-1-78754-277-8 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-78754-279-2 (Epub)

ISSN: 1876-066X (Series)

Contents

About the Authors

Catherine Axinn has been teaching at Ohio University (United States) since 1991 and retired from full time teaching in 2015. She received her PhD degree from Michigan State University in 1985 and has taught at Michigan State University and Syracuse University prior to coming to Ohio University. She founded the Consortium for International Marketing Research (CIMaR), an international network of professors that fosters collaborative cross-national marketing research. Her research interest focusses on factors affecting firm performance especially in export markets, and the internationalisation of entrepreneurial firms. She recently served as a Visiting Professor at NUPIN-IAG-PUC in Rio de Janeiro, where she organised several research oriented workshops and was elected Project Director for a series of major multination studies.

Alexandra Baba has completed her studies of Entrepreneurship at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (Austria). During the Bachelor programme, she discovered her passion for international business and marketing in specific. After graduation, she decided to focus even more on these fields of interest and enrolled at Johannes Kepler University Linz to study General Management with special competence in Marketing and International Marketing. Parallel to the university education, she worked for a trading agency for animal feed. This profession and the knowledge acquired in the university programmes opened the door to the food and beverages industry. After graduation from Johannes Kepler University Linz, she accepted a position as Marketing Manager for an international flavour-producing company. Currently, she is employed as Product Manager at a well-known Austrian food brand.

Luísa Antunes Garcia de Campos is a Ph.D. Scholar and University Tutor at University of South Australia and is conducting her research on early internationalising SMEs. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Business in Brazil and studied for her Master’s degree at Ohio University. Luísa Campos has experience working in three different industries. She has worked for four years in the automotive industry for a Japanese multinational as a Market Analyst and Consultant. Luísa has also worked as a Lecturer in three Brazilian universities teaching subjects related to business, management, exports and imports, international teaching, international strategic and entrepreneurship.

Alfredo D’Angelo is an Associate Professor in International Business and Entrepreneurship at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan (Italy). His research and teaching interests revolve around entrepreneurship, internationalisation and innovation in SMEs. His research has been published in leading journals such as Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of World Business, International Marketing Review, Industry and Innovation, Journal of Management and Governance, among others. From 2010 to 2015, he was Lecturer in International Business at the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow (UK) and Visiting Professor at Nankai Business School (China) and the Université Catholique de Lille (France).

Noémie Dominguez is an Associate Professor of Business Administration at iaelyon School of Management, University of Lyon (France). She is directing a Master degree in “International Business Realities”. Her research interests include exports, networks, strategies and decision making in the internationalisation process of SMEs – notably in the context of emerging countries. Her work led her to co-create, in 2017 and in collaboration with Ulrike Mayrhofer, a research chair on this topic. She published her research in books (e.g. SMEs internationalisation strategies, ISTE/Wiley, 2018) as well as in several academic journals such as International Business Review, Journal of International Entrepreneurship, M@n@gement, Management International and Revue Internationale PME, among others.

Ulf Elg is a Professor of Business Administration at the School of Economics and Management, Lund University (Sweden), with a specialisation in marketing. His research areas include international business and marketing, emerging markets, interorganisational networks, social responsibility and retailing. His articles have appeared in journals such as the Journal of Organizational Behaviour, Journal of International Business Studies, Organization Studies, International Marketing Review, European Journal of Marketing and Journal of Business Research.

Susan Freeman has a PhD (2003) in International Marketing and International Business from Monash University (Australia). She is a Professor of International Business and Founder and Director of Strategy, International Business and Entrepreneurship Research (SIBER) in the Business School, University of South Australia. She is the former Dean of the Postgraduate and Professional Studies in the Business School, joining the University in 2015. Her research interest is smaller firm internationalisation strategy, international entrepreneurship, network theory, multinational companies strategies for sustainable competitive advantage and subsidiary autonomy. Previously, she was an Associate Professor of International Business and Discipline Leader for International Business Studies in the Faculty of the Professions at the University of Adelaide, South Australia, and a former Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of the Professions. Previously, she taught at Monash University from 1995 to 2009. She has also lived and taught in the Netherlands and Austria from 1989 to 1995, as well as in Belgium and Finland.

Pervez N. Ghauri completed his PhD at the Department of Business Studies, Uppsala University (Sweden), where he also taught for several years. Currently, Pervez Ghauri is a Professor of International Business at Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham (United Kingdom). Recently, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Economics by Turku School of Economics and Management (Finland). Pervez Ghauri has published more than 30 books and more than 100 journal articles. In parallel, he has been the founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Business Review and is Consulting Editor for Journal of International Business Studies. He was Editor (Europe) for the Journal of World Business between 2007 and 2014.

Birgit Hagen is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pavia (Italy). She received her PhDs from the Vienna University of Economics and Business and the University of Pavia. Her research interests fall at the intersection of small firm internationalisation and international entrepreneurship. Her work has been published in International Business Review, Management International Review, European Management Review, Journal of International Entrepreneurship and in several book chapters. She is currently involved in a Horizon 2020 project and has participated in various Erasmus+ strategic projects related to international entrepreneurship and marketing.

Katharina Maria Hofer is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Retailing, Sales and Marketing at Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria), and Head of the Department of Marketing for Emerging Markets. She was a visiting scholar at the Institute of International Business at Georgia State University, Atlanta (USA), and National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology in Kaohsiung (Taiwan). Her primary research focusses on international marketing, and especially on the areas pricing, brand management, services marketing and internal marketing. Her publications have appeared in academic journals including The Journal of Service Management, Management Research Review, Advances in International Marketing and the International Journal of Emerging Markets. She serves as an editorial review board member of the Journal of Global Marketing.

Olli Kuivalainen is a Professor of International Marketing at the Lappeenranta University of Technology (Finland) and Professor of International Business and Management at Alliance Manchester Business School (UK). His research interests are in the areas of internationalisation and growth strategies of knowledge-intensive firms, international marketing and international entrepreneurship. He has published on these issues in Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of World Business, International Business Review, Journal of International Marketing and International Marketing Review, among others.

Richard Lacoursière, MSc, is a Research Professional at the Canada Research Chair on SMEs Performance and Risk Management. He is also a Lecturer at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, where he teaches strategic human resource management, change management and organisational behaviour. In addition to co-authoring book chapters, the results of his research have been published in scientific journals such as Journal of Management and Organization, International Journal of Manpower, Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development and Human Systems Management.

Jani Lindqvist, MSc (Economics), has over 10 years of experience from business development positions as a Consultant and Project Manager. His primary areas of expertise are business process development, strategy implementation, business strategy, international operations and supply chain management, and his research has been published in Journal of Euromarketing. His main industrial experience is from information and communication technologies sector, retail, media and logistics. Currently, he works as a Project Manager, Business Development and Transformation at VR Transpoint (Finland).

Antonio Majocchi is a Professor of International Business and Management at the Department of Economics and Management at the University of Pavia (Italy), where he is currently Dean of the Department. His main research interests concern firms’ internationalisation strategies, export performance drivers and entry mode strategies. His most recent interest with regard to the impact of corporate governance on firms’ international strategies. He publishes his research in international journals like Journal of World Business, Journal of International Business Studies, International Small Business Journal, International Business Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Small Business Management and Management International Review. He has been a Visiting Scholar at D’Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University, Boston (USA), at King’s College London (UK), at the University of Valencia (Spain), at the Management School of Strasbourg University (France) and at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland).

Ulrike Mayrhofer is a Professor of International Business at iaelyon School of Management, University of Lyon (France), where she is the Vice-Dean for Corporate Relations, the Academic Director of the International MBA and the Head of the International Business Team at the Magellan Research Center. Her research focusses on internationalisation strategies and is published in books (e.g., Management of Multinational Companies: A French Perspective, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013; Global Phenomena and Social Sciences. An Interdisciplinary and Comparative Approach, Springer, 2018, with Jean-Sylvestre Bergé, Sophie Harnay and Lionel Obadia) and journals like European Management Journal, European Management Review, International Business Review, International Studies of Management and Organization, Journal of International Marketing and Thunderbird International Business Review.

Niina Nummela is a Professor of International Business at the Turku School of Economics at the University of Turku (Finland) and a Visiting Professor at the University of Tartu (Estonia). Her areas of expertise include international entrepreneurship, cross-border acquisitions and research methods. She has published widely in academic journals, including International Business Review, Journal of World Business, Management International Review, Industrial Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing and International Small Business Journal, among others. She has also contributed to several internationally published books, and edited several books for international publishers, such as Edward Elgar Publishing, Palgrave Macmillan and Routledge.

José Pla-Barber serves as Professor and Chair of International Business at the University of Valencia (Spain). He is Vice-Chair of the European International Business Academy (EIBA) and the Chair of the Western Europe Chapter of the Academy of International Business (AIB). He is also an Associate Member at the John Dunning Center for International Business, University of Reading (UK). José Pla-Barber has a distinctive list of publications in top-level journals, such as Global Strategy Journal, Journal of Economic Geography, British Journal of Management, International Business Review, Journal of Business Research, Journal of International Marketing, Management International Review, International Marketing Review, Services Industries Journal, among others. He has been head of the PhD program in Management (2008–2014) and currently he is the Director of the Master in Business Strategy at the University of Valencia. José Pla Barber was a Visiting Researcher at the University of Reading, BI Norwegian Business School and King’s College London.

Christiane Prange is a Professor of Global Strategy at Tongji University (China) and Director of the AgileVentureLab, a think tank focussed on researching how companies and individuals can better cope with ambiguity and unpredictability. Christiane Prange was educated in Germany (MBA), Geneva University (Switzerland), where she obtained her PhD and Harvard Business School benefiting from insights into team interaction and participant-centred learning. After several years in industry and consulting, she returned to academia and has lectured as a Visiting Professor with top business schools in more than 10 countries, including Austria, France, Malaysia, Russia, Romania and UK. In the last 20 years, she has also consulted numerous multinational companies on internationalisation strategies, global innovation management and agility. Her ideas are published in eight books and several articles in journals, such as Organization Studies, Journal of World Business, International Business Review, among others. She regularly presents her work at international conferences and workshops (www.agileventurelab.com; @agileventurelab).

Mika Ruokonen is a Business Director at Futurice Oy (Finland). He is passionate about managing innovations and creativity, and turning digital technologies and data into fast growing business. He has work experience in digital strategy, sales, business development, and consulting and research. His research has been published in journals such as European Journal of Marketing and The Journal of High Technology Management Research.

Sami Saarenketo is a Professor of International Marketing at the School of Business and Management, at Lappeenranta University of Technology (Finland). His primary areas of research interest are internationalisation and international entrepreneurship in technology-based small firms. He has published on these issues in Journal of World Business, Management International Review, International Business Review, European Journal of Marketing and Journal of International Entrepreneurship, among others.

Stefan Schmid is Professor of International Management and Strategic Management at ESCP Europe’s Berlin campus (Germany). His research focusses on internationalisation strategies, headquarters–subsidiary relationships and the management of foreign subsidiaries as well as the internationalisation of top management. He has published widely in journals such as International Business Review, Journal of International Management, Journal of World Business and Management International Review. He teaches courses in Bachelor’s, Master’s, MBA and doctoral programmes, and is actively involved in Executive Education. At ESCP Europe, he currently serves as the Academic Dean of the Executive MBA programme.

Maria Cristina Sestu obtained her PhD from the University of Padova. She is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Pavia (Italy). Her research interests include internationalisation, foreign entry strategies, family businesses and corporate governance.

Josée St-Pierre, PhD, is a Professor of Finance at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, and Head of the Canada Research Chair on SMEs Performance and Risk Management. She co-founded the SME Research Institute and is Editor-in-Chief of the Revue internationale PME. In collaboration with researchers and practitioners, she co-developed diagnostic tools to enable SMEs to improve their overall performance, innovation and internationalisation capacity and reduce their vulnerability. These diagnostics were used in Canada, France, Mexico and Cameroon. Her research interests focus on entrepreneurial finance and the measures and determinants of the performance and risks of SMEs, in contexts of growth, innovation and internationalisation. Her works have been published in the Journal of Small Business Management, Small Business Economics, Technovation, International Small Business Journal and Management International.

Gabriele Suder has been with the University of Melbourne (Australia) since 2014. She is based at Melbourne Business School, and also served as Director of International Relations at Melbourne. She previously was Professor at SKEMA Business School (France), Founder/Director of MBA/MSc programmes, then Academic Director in North Carolina (USA). In her roles, she is passionate about international engagement, distinguished by innovation, research and teaching awards. Gabriele Suder’s PhD in Management (1994) is from the University of Bath (UK). Her research focusses on international business strategy, production networks and regionalisation. Gabriele Suder has held teaching/research fellowships at Australian National University, Aalto University, University of Delhi and German Graduate School of Management & Law and Jean Monnet Chair awarded by the European Union. She is the author of more than 10 books, numerous scholarly publications and Editorial Board member for The Journal of International Business Policy, International Business Review and Vice-President of the Australia New Zealand International Business Academy.

Lasse Torkkeli is an Associate Professor at the School of Business and Management at Lappeenranta University of Technology (Finland). His research interests include SME internationalisation, business networks, organisational capabilities and competencies and business-to-business interaction. He has previously published in the Journal of International Entrepreneurship and in the European Management Journal, among others.

Sophie Veilleux, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Technology and International Entrepreneurship at Université Laval (Canada). She teaches international management, innovation management, and the process of high technology firms’ development, from their creation up to their international growth. She has received two prizes for the quality of her teaching. She has co-founded a Summer School in Entrepreneurship for graduate students. Her research interests include entrepreneurs’ motivations, SMEs behaviour, networks resources and public policy incentives to foreign markets expansion, with a special focus on international strategic alliances in high-technology industries. Her most significant works on internationalisation of biotechnology and photonics firms have been published in Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Journal of Business Strategy, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business and International Journal of Business and Globalisation. Prior to entering academia, she has been working in economic development agencies, as well as an international consulting firm, to help SMEs innovate and internationalise.

Cristina Villar is a Lecturer in Strategy and International Business at the University of Valencia (Spain). She holds a PhD in Management and her research focusses on international business management, with a particular interest in innovation and knowledge management processes in both multinationals and SMEs. She has published in top journals, such as Global Strategy Journal, International Business Review, International Marketing Review, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, Services Industries Journal and Service Business, among others. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Reading (UK), ICESI (Colombia) and Uppsala (Sweden).

Youzhen Zhao is an Associate Professor of International Business and Strategy at School of Management, Fudan University (China). She was a Visiting Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bocconi University, University of Oregon and Washington University in St. Louis. Youzhen Zhao participated in the Program on Case Method and Participant-Centred Learning (PCMPCL) at Harvard Business School and at Nanyang Technological University. Her recent research interests include Chinese firms’ internationalisation and competitiveness, international new ventures, emerging market multinationals and regional headquarters of MNEs in China. She is the Principal Investigator of research projects from National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Education of China, the Foundation for Shanghai Philosophy and Social Sciences Program, Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, Fudan University, Bao Steel as well as international organisations such as The Fondazione Cariplo.

Antonella Zucchella is a Professor of Marketing at the University of Pavia (Italy) and Visiting Research Scholar at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge (UK). She is also Visiting Professor of International Marketing at the University of Strasbourg (France). She is member of the Italian Academy of Management, the Academy of International Business (AIB) and the European International Business Academy (EIBA). Her research interests are in international business, marketing and international entrepreneurship, small business management and entrepreneurship, global value chains and technological innovation. She published in International Business Review, Management International Review, Journal of World Business and Journal of Institutional Economics. She is also author of several books, like International Entrepreneurship published by Palgrave and Business Models for Life Sciences by Routledge. She has been twice awarded for the best paper in the International Business conference AIB-UK and best paper of the track at EIBA conference 2016. She has been Keynote Speaker in several international conferences, like the International Business Conference in Vaasa University, the Clustering Conference in Valencia, the Cadiz University Conference on Entrepreneurship and the McGill Conference on International Entrepreneurship.

List of Contributors