Internationalization Orientation in SMEs: The Mediating Role of Technological Innovation

This study examines the relationship between internationalization orientation and international performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and the mediating effect of technological innovation. Prior research suggests that internationalization is a prominent strategic choice for SMEs growth and profitability. However, there is still no explicit agreement on how internationalization affects international performance. Similarly, the role of innovation on performance has long been emphasized, but the implications of technological innovation on international performance are still eluding us. Our investigation of 116 SMEs in the United Kingdom reveals that internationalization orientation has a significant effect on their international performance, with SMEs adopting simultaneously an inward and outward international orientation achieving superior results. We further demonstrate that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between technological innovation and international firm performance among SMEs. Meanwhile, we find that technological innovation positively mediates the effect of internationalization orientation on international firm performance, particularly for the SMEs exhibiting moderate levels of technological innovation activities. The findings of this study suggest that managers can improve international performance by combining inward and outward internationalization orientation with technological innovation activities in their strategic decisions.     

战略导向、组织学习对产品创新的影响研究

本文对战略导向影响产品创新的路径进行了研究,发现不同战略导向对学习活动有不同的选择倾向,而不同类型的学习活动也会对产品创新产生不同的影响。本研究不仅弥补了应用性学习与探索性学习研究的不足,也有助于企业引导和利用组织学习来提高产品创新水平,为管理实践提供理论参考。     

集群企业创新来源、技术能力及创新绩效关系研究

产业集群为中小企业创新提供了良好的环境,促进了中小企业的技术学习.本文以浙江省产业集群中的中小企业为研究对象,通过问卷调查,对创新来源、技术能力及创新绩效的关系进行了分析.分别从产品创新来源和工艺创新来源两个方面进行了实证研究,检验并支持了技术能力的中介作用,以及创新来源对创新绩效的正向影响.     

Overcoming pandemic challenges through product innovation: The role of digital technologies and servitization

The fast-changing scenario related to the COVID-19 pandemic calls for firms to rapidly redefine and innovate their strategies to sustain their businesses, with research emphasizing the key roles of digital technologies and servitization. We aim to enrich the theoretical debate on this matter by assessing how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) achieve product innovation under time constraints by leveraging two specific technology groups (information and communication technologies [ICT] and Industry 4.0 data-processing technologies) and servitization. The research is based on a mixed-method approach consisting of an original survey completed by 257 Italian SMEs (grounded on a previous qualitative study about such SMEs' behaviors during the first Italian lockdown), followed by in-depth interviews with the owners and/or managers of the eight SMEs that participated in the survey. The results show a positive relationship between the increased use of digital technologies (ICT and Industry 4.0 data-processing technologies) during the pandemic with servitization and, in turn, with product innovation. Specifically, the increased use of ICT during the pandemic had a direct positive effect on product innovation, while Industry 4.0 data-processing technologies affected product innovation only through the full mediation of servitization. The qualitative study allowed us to highlight how the different kinds of digital technologies supported SMEs’ innovation (servitization and product innovation) during the pandemic. The theoretical and practical contributions of this study are discussed.     

How Do SMEs Decide on International Market Entry? An Empirical Examination in the Middle East

This study contributes to the scant literature that scrutinises the decision-making process preceding foreign entries, particularly in the Middle Eastern context. While considerable research has examined the content and antecedents of the internationalisation decision of firms, far less attention has been paid to how SMEs decide on international market entry. The answer to this question is important to advance our understanding of internationalisation processes and offer essential insights for first and successive market entries, particularly post political crises. Through an embedded approach to case study, the analysis of four SMEs based in Egypt and Qatar suggests that SMEs' decision-making evolves into a rational mode as SMEs progress through successive international market entries. The study also captures the co-existence of reactive and bounded rationality modes during SMEs' unplanned internationalisation and suggests that SMEs are likely to adopt a bounded rationality mode as a response to the occurrence of a political crisis in the home country.     

电子商务市场特征对产品创新影响的实证研究

根据电子商务价值理论,电子商务企业进行产品创新能有效提升或创造客户价值,但电子商务市场环境因素可能会影响电子商务企业的产品创新,而已有关于产品创新的研究大多聚焦于传统市场。依据电子商务客户价值、从众行为、多重创新、组织学习和信息过载等理论,以电子商务市场的两个主要特征市场信息和竞争强度为前导变量,构建它们对于电子商务企业产品创新倾向和电子商务企业绩效的影响模型,并提出变量间关系假设。通过收集中国最大B2C平台天猫商城内309家电子商务企业的数据,应用多元回归分析方法实证检验电子商务市场特征对产品创新的影响。研究结果表明,电子商务企业产品创新正向影响企业绩效;市场信息促进电子商务企业产品创新,但其效用受竞争强度的反向调节;竞争强度显著加强电子商务企业的产品创新倾向且不会影响企业创新绩效,因为在当前电子商务发展阶段和电子商务市场特性的作用下,产品创新能获得熊彼得租金,主导产品创新的是竞争脱离效应而非熊彼得效应。本研究结论对电子商务企业实践具有一定的指导意义。     

Improving innovation performance through environmental practices in the fashion industry: the moderating effect of internationalisation and the influence of collaboration

In recent years, the scientific literature on supply chain management has increasingly debated on environmental sustainability as well as collaboration, presenting these issues as an important source of innovation along the supply chain. By combining literature streams on environmental sustainability, supply chain collaboration and innovation at the supply chain level, this paper aims to analyse whether the adoption of environmental sustainability practices and collaboration along the supply chain implies better innovation performance, in terms of differentiation from the competitors for higher quality, product or process. The paper also investigates whether the internationalisation, in terms of both production and distribution activities, negatively moderates this relationship. The study focuses on the fashion industry, and a survey of major Italian fashion companies was conducted. The main results of the research clearly show the positive impact of these practices on innovation performance. The paper also proves the existence of a moderating effect exerted by internationalisation on the relationship between environmental sustainability and innovation performance.     

Internationalisation and outsourcing of operations and product development in the fashion industry

This paper investigates the choices in terms of internationalisation and outsourcing of operations and product development activities, as well as collaboration practices used within and across organisations, in different segments of the European fashion industry. Based on multiple, in-depth case studies from Italy, Germany and the UK, the paper shows that fashion companies adopt different configurations of operations and product development, i.e. integrated, collaborative and virtual, ranging from local-integrated models to global-full outsourcing of operations and product development activities. For each configuration, different collaboration practices are in use. Product line positioning and quality, firm size, sales volumes and technical complexity of the products are the key drivers determining the configuration choices and the adoption of certain collaboration practices.     

Determinants of innovativeness in SMEs: disentangling core innovation and technology adoption capabilities

This paper studies innovativeness in SMEs from a set of innovation indicators at the firm level, capturing various types of innovation (product, process, organisational, and marketing innovations) and the level of innovativeness in these firm’s developments. The article identifies two separate dimensions in the innovativeness of Spanish SMEs, using factor analysis techniques. One dimension is associated with the capabilities for core/internal innovation and the other with the capabilities for the adoption of technology. The paper shows that significant differences exist in the personal and organisational factors that favour these two dimensions. The entrepreneur’s motivation, business planning, and cooperation in R&D activities constitute significant factors when considering the core dimension of a firechnology adoption. However, the use of external consultancy services seems to have no significant effect on the core dimension of the innovativeness of an SME, whereas it is a relevant factor for its technology adoption. Furthermore, it is shown that the entrepreneur’s education plays a more significant role in the core dimension of a firm’s innovativeness than in its capabilities for technology adoption. Depending on the policy objectives, these differences should lead to the application of specific policy approaches when an attempt to stimulate innovation in SMEs is made.     

Extension of internationalisation models: drivers and processes for the globalisation of product development – a comparison of Danish and Chinese engineering firms

This paper develops an extension to established production- and supply chain management focused internationalisation models. It applies explorative case studies in Danish and Chinese engineering firms to discover how the globalisation process of product development differs from Danish and Chinese perspectives. The paper uses internationalisation and global product development theory to explain similarities and differences in the approaches. Grounded in case study results, a new model for internationalisation is proposed. The new model expands the internationalisation process model to include steps of product development and collaborative distributed development beyond sourcing, sales and production elements. The paper then provides propositions for how to further develop the suggested model, and how western companies can learn from the Chinese approaches, and globalise their product development activities from the front end of the value chain rather than from the back-end.     

Innovation and internationalization in an emerging market context: Moderating effects of interpersonal and organizational social networks

This study draws upon the social network theory to understand under what conditions innovation influences firm internationalization in the context of Vietnamese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We theorize that different types of social networks play varying roles in moderating the relationship between innovation and firm internationalization. Using a panel dataset of more than 15,800 observations of SMEs, we found that high levels of interorganizational social networks positively moderate the relationship between innovation and firm internationalization. However, there is no such relationship for interpersonal social networks for the studied firms. Our findings will allow SME managers to better understand the crucial role that interorganizational social networks can play in their successful internationalization.     

政府补贴能激励企业创新吗？——基于演化博弈的新创与在位企业创新行为分析

为考察政府补贴激励企业创新的有效性，文章将补贴对象、补贴强度和补贴环境纳入同一框架，分析补贴效果与企业属性、补贴强度和竞争程度的关系。首先以企业创新偏好的异质性为前提构建政府补贴下新创企业与在位企业的演化博弈模型，分析产品市场竞争和补贴强度的变化影响企业创新行为选择的机理；然后利用门槛模型和我国143家上市企业数据，实证检验补贴强度和产品市场竞争对不同企业创新选择行为的作用。研究结果表明：政府补贴更易对新创企业产生激励作用；只有在补贴强度超过阈值的情况下，政府补贴才能促使不同企业均选择创新；产品市场竞争弱化了政府补贴对企业创新的促进作用。因此，政府除继续加大对企业创新支持力度以外，还应对不同企业实施差异化补贴政策，并针对不同的市场竞争环境制定合理的补贴资源分配战略。     

Strategic CSR for innovation in SMEs: Does diversity matter?

Both corporate social responsibility and diversity influence firms' innovation, yet their relationship and links to innovation remain uncertain, especially among small to medium-sized enterprises. Relying on strategic and institutional CSR perspectives and a value-in-diversity approach, this study examines the mediating roles of gender and nationality diversity on the CSR–innovation link at the organizational level. With a sample of 1348 SMEs from Luxembourg, the results show that strategic CSR can promote both types of diversity, but only nationality diversity triggers technological innovation. Nationality diversity emerges as a partial mediator of the relationship between CSR and SMEs’ technological innovation. Thus, strategic CSR, through the genuine pursuit of such diversity, can help SMEs attain positive returns on their product or process innovation. These results have important theoretical and managerial implications.     

The internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises: the effect of family management, human capital and foreign ownership

Research on factors affecting the internationalization of SMEs is attracting growing interest. However, only a limited number of empirical analyses have explored the question of if and to what extent the family character of the firm has an effect on internationalization decisions. Relying on data from a sample of 1,324 Italian manufacturing SMEs, this paper shows that involvement of the owning family in management negatively influences export propensity but, once the choice to go international has been made, both the degree of internationalization and geographical scope in family-managed firms are not significantly different from nonfamily-managed firms. Empirical results also show that the level of human capital and the presence of foreign shareholders in the SMEs positively influence internationalization. Innovation propensity, size, and age of the firm as well as industry characteristics are included in the analysis as control variables.     

Effects of intellectual capital and university knowledge in indigenous innovation: evidence from Indian SMEs

Abstract

Intellectual capital and collaboration with universities are vital knowledge management practices for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to innovate and improve the effectiveness of their operations. This study investigates empirically the impacts of intellectual capital and university knowledge on indigenous innovation and how business and institutional environments affect the relationships. The research model is tested using moderated regression analysis and data collected from 150 SMEs in India. The results show that intellectual capital and university knowledge improve indigenous innovation, both individually and interactively. The effect of intellectual capital in indigenous innovation is amplified by dysfunctional competition whereas the effect of university knowledge in indigenous innovation is attenuated by environmental uncertainty. In addition, we find that indigenous innovation is positively associated with business performance. The impact of indigenous innovation on business performance is enhanced by dysfunctional competition but reduced by environmental uncertainty.     

From Entrepreneurial Orientation and Learning Orientation to Business Performance: Analysing the Mediating Role of Organizational Learning and the Moderating Effects of Organizational Size

Following the organizational learning theory and the knowledge‐based view approach, this contribution aims to study the influence of entrepreneurial orientation and learning orientation on organizational learning, considering the latter as a mediating variable in the relationships between both antecedent cultural values and business performance. We also analyse the moderating role of organizational size on these previous relationships. The hypotheses proposed in our research model are tested on a sample of 140 Spanish industrial companies, applying variance‐based structural equation modelling: partial least squares. In order to assess the moderating effects of organizational size, we adopt a multi‐group approach using two subsamples with large firms and small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Our findings indicate that organizational learning partially mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance and fully mediates the link between learning orientation and performance. Likewise, the results reveal that the relationship established between entrepreneurial orientation and organizational learning is more intense for the group of large firms than for the group of SMEs. Moreover, the influence of learning orientation on organizational learning is greater in SMEs than in large firms.     

Building resilience in SMEs of perishable product supply chains: enablers,barriers and risks

SMEs of perishable product supply chains (PPSCs) are critical to sustaining fresh food supply and global economy. However, they face immense challenges given the nature of their operations. Surprisingly, the literature lacks research on the distinct intra- and inter-organisational factors intertwined to build resilience in these firms. From the semi-structured interviews conducted with 30 managers of a PPSC in Australia, we developed a holistic framework to build resilience in SMEs of PPSCs. The findings offer novel insights into research and practice including an optimal portfolio of enablers, barriers and risks towards building resilience. The analysis reveals that most risks stem from the factors that are internal to the supply chain, thus necessitating a strong supply chain collaboration. The level of resilience, barriers and risks varies considerably within SMEs depending on their size (small vs. medium) and location of nodes in the supply chain. Interestingly, the SMEs with consortium support demonstrate better resilience and performance.     

动态寡头市场博弈条件下企业创新能力的产品创新及工艺创新选择

应用双寡头动态博弈的均衡方法,研究企业创新能力对企业进行产品创新和工艺创新的影响;引入产品创新成本系数的概念,建立企业的创新能力、竞争激烈程度以及企业的产品质量和技术创新种类的关系,推导出企业创新模式的判据式。结果显示,企业产品创新能力越强,在Bertrand竞争和Cournot竞争中都选择产品创新的可能性越大。当企业产品创新能力下降到一定的程度,高质量企业在Cournot竞争中首选工艺创新;低质量企业在Bertrand竞争中首选工艺创新。     

“Where to” micromultinationals? A tribute to Professor Pavlos Dimitratos

This reflection serves as a tribute to Professor Pavlos Dimitratos by providing a state-of-the-art understanding of micromultinationals (mMNEs), an important term initially coined by Pavlos and his colleagues (2003) in their European Management Journal article “Micromultinationals: New Types of Firms for the Global Competitive Landscape” to capture the rising phenomenon of international small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with advanced modes of entry. Whilst underexplored, such firms have critical research, managerial, and policymaking implications for their increasing population and significant value-added activities in home and host economies relative to exporting firms. Based on a short analysis of existing mMNE studies, we appeal for more scholarly attention to their evolution, behavioural characteristics, and consequences, particularly in the area of SME internationalisation. We suggest several promising future directions to investigate this intriguing type of entrepreneurial firms and, using a Scottish context, show how they are appealing to policymakers.