How Do Smaller Firms Select Foreign Markets?

Fabio Musso and Barbara Francioni ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: The purpose of this paper was to analyze the internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in relation to international market selection (IMS). To accomplish this, an investigation of the primary factors influencing SMEs’ choice when selecting international market in a systematic way was conducted. In addition we sought to understand whether there was a relationship between the systematic approach in IMS and the characteristics of SMEs. Results revealed that the majority of SMEs adopt a non-systematic IMS. However, in the case of SMEs following a systematic approach to IMS, the study pointed out that SMEs are influenced by firm-specific and host country factors, but not by entry barriers like geographic and cultural distance. In addition, results illustrated the existence of a relationship between systematic IMS and firm size.

Keywords: International market selection; Small and medium-sized enterprises; International strategy; Systematic and non-systematic approaches (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D92 M16 M21 M31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-09-25, Revised 2012-11-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cdm, nep-cse, nep-int and nep-sbm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in International Journal of Marketing Studies 6.4(2012): pp. 44-53

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:49117

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