Key Success Factors Of Sme Internationalisation

This collective book offers a cross-country perspective on the internationalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Scholars from prestigious institutions in Europe, North America, Australia and China provide new insights on how SMEs develop and perform their international activities.

Internationalization is a strategic issue for companies as it is today the central axis for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Market expansion and the growing importance of emerging markets offer new development opportunities for SMEs to use innovative strategies - such as head-deck strategies - to effectively penetrate these markets. This book focuses on understanding these new strategies. Why do SMEs use head-of-bridge strategies in order to internationalize? How do they deploy such strategies abroad? Based on the example of five manufacturing SMEs, which are at different stages of internationalization, this book highlights the main motivations, stages of deployment but also difficulties encountered in this direction. This book is a tool for assessing potential locations and provide managers with a new alternative in terms of internationalization, enabling rapid identification of key stakeholders, adapting their international development plan and anticipating potential pitfalls.

Singapore F&B companies must venture beyond Singapore for greener pastures. Venturing overseas can be successful for many, while others have failed. The key questions are the following: 1. What are the critical success factors? 2. What are the struggles? 3. Is internationalisation the same process for all companies? 4. What capabilities and competencies must the company possess to succeed internationally? 5. What are the internationalisation strategies to be successful? The book is based on a multiple-case study of the internationalisation of thirty Singapore food service companies. These Singaporean companies were categorised in the stages of internationalisation as aspirants, actives, and achievers. To strengthen external validity and data triangulation, the study included eleven industry experts, termed as advisers, and seven international purchasers of the Singapore F&B brands called acquirers. _______________________________________________ James Mok has written a must-read book for any F&B business considering international franchising, in particular throughout Asia. The thirty cases studies were well chosen to illustrate the complexity, challenges and pitfalls Asian F&B businesses face when introducing a foreign foodservice concept to overseas markets. This book also serves as highly useful guide for Asia-based F&B businesses to compete successfully internationally (Dr Stephen Choo).

Nowadays, globalization as well as the successive economic, political and health crises have changed the rules of the game in terms of competitiveness for companies. In this context, SMEs perhaps more than others are forced to face several upheavals to secure their activities and guarantee their survival. While SMEs have well-known weaknesses linked to their resources, they also have many assets that enable them to constantly renew themselves. Flexibility, responsiveness and resilience are therefore the watchwords to create new opportunities to grow, innovate, and position themselves on international markets. But how do they call into question the dynamics, approaches, and strategies for evolving in the international market? What role does innovation play in pursuing these changes? Through this collective and multidisciplinary book, we confront the point of view of management scientists, engineers and practitioners, to provide a rich and complementary multifaceted insight into innovation and internationalization in SMEs. We thus highlight key success factors favoring the emergence of new strategies, dynamics and value-creating opportunities.

With growing international business, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been faced with increased competition, but also with enhanced opportunities. Edith Olejnik addresses four major issues within the context of SMEs’ internationalization process: First, she identifies the three different internationalization patterns that SMEs take and analyzes how these patterns develop over time. Second, she looks at dynamic changes of foreign operation modes and the managerial reasons for these changes. Third, she derives an empirical classification of smaller family firms and profiles them using a comprehensive set of organizational variables. Fourth, she investigates the relationship between firm-level processes and dynamic capabilities in driving the international performance of SMEs. Based on theoretical considerations and empirical analyses this work provides important implications for research and management practice.

With the globalization process, firms are seeking to expand their activities to international markets but are also “feeling” expanded competition from abroad. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), though seeking to expand abroad, have particularities that hinder their natural international expansion path due to particular barriers and challenges that most multinational firms have already overcome. Cases on Internationalization Challenges for SMEs provides a set of case studies on the internationalization of SMEs in order to share the latest empirical research findings in the field of internationalization in the context of a globalized world, and which considers a highly competitive international business setting. This includes examining the main reasons for the success or failure of the process of internationalization of SMEs and their inherent activities. Covering topics that include competitive advantage, export performance, and inward internationalization, this book targets managers, executives, and entrepreneurs concerned with how to adapt their companies to a fast-changing international business environment, how to conduct internationalization strategies, how to choose the most adequate international entry modes, and how to adapt their products and strategies to international markets. It is also suited for academicians, researchers, and students in the field of management.

This book discusses the role of human capital and a global mindset for a successful intercultural management of the Society of Jesus in the geographical contexts of Japan and Peru during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Historical data for more than 200 Jesuits has been evaluated and analyzed according to modern management theory. The work is, therefore, an interdisciplinary study related to the history of religious orders, European expansion, and trans- or intercultural management and shows how the Jesuit missionaries in Japan and Peru were able to achieve and stimulate a successful expansion of their order’s influence in these regions of the world. While analyzing a historical topic, the book is also of interest to modern day managers and those who are interested in creating a successful strategy for intercultural management.