This paper studies the performance consequences of the speed of SME internationalization. The authors identify three research gaps: few studies treat speed as an independent variable; most studies analyze speed only until internationalization starts; and, finally, studies have paid little attention to the multidimensionality of the speed concept. The authors seek to address these gaps and to contribute to the literature on the dynamics of internationalization by developing three measures of internationalization speed, which capture its multidimensionality. Building on the theories of learning advantage of newness and time compression diseconomies, the study presents three hypotheses on speed’s effect on performance, and the theoretically derived research model is tested on a sample of 183 SMEs visited on site. The analysis demonstrates that the speed of a firm’s increase in the breadth of its international markets has a positive but curvilinear effect on firm performance. It also demonstrates that the speed of a firm’s increase in commitment of foreign resources has a negative but curvilinear effect on the performance of the firm. These results have implications both for scholars interested in the dynamics of firm internationalization and for SME managers.

Purpose– The purpose of the study is to examine the political sources of uncertainty in the internationalization process of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Design/methodology/approach– The authors theoretically derived a research model embracing three hypotheses. These hypotheses are tested on a sample of 203 on-site interviewed SMEs. Regression analysis is used to test two individual hypotheses and one interaction effect.

Findings– The regression analysis reveals that political knowledge possessed by the firm reduces uncertainty in the internationalization process. Political turbulence is shown to increase uncertainty in the internationalization. The interaction shows that political turbulence obliterates the uncertainty reducing effect by political knowledge.

Research limitations/implications– The authors identifies two main political sources of uncertainty in the internationalization process of SMEs. For managers and business researchers, it is shown that experiential knowledge is useful under stable conditions. When turbulence increases, however, firms need to develop alternative strategies for uncertainty management.

Originality/value– This study is the first to test the uncertainty reducing effects of experiential knowledge in turbulent environments. Thus, by running the interaction between political knowledge and political turbulence, the authors shed new light on the usefulness of previous experiences in the internationalization process.

International opportunities are the catalysts of SME internationalization. Our knowledge regarding the role of international opportunities in internationalization is undisputable, yet our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of international opportunity development remains inadequate. In this paper, we seek to address this shortcoming in the literature by answering the following research questions: how do internal and external factors influence the international opportunity scouting of SMEs, and what are the effects of the international opportunity scouting strategy in the internationalization of the firm? From a case study of nine Swedish SMEs, the authors develop propositions on the interplay between the theoretical constructs: international experience, network structure, international opportunity scouting, and international opportunity novelty. We propose that the greater the international experience of the SME, the more systematically the SME will scout for international opportunities; the more closed the network the SME is embedded in, the more systematically the SME will scout for international opportunities; and the more systematically the SME scouts for international opportunities, the lower the novelty of the opportunities identified by the SME. These findings come with implications for theory as well as for SME managers.

Although experiential knowledge is a well-documented construct in the internationalisation literature, research on the multidimensionality of the construct remains limited and we do not know how different knowledge combinations among internationalising SMEs are composed. This article answers the research questions: is experiential knowledge in the internationalisation process a multidimensional construct, and is there a pattern to be found among the experiential knowledge profiles of internationalising SMEs? In the article, the multidimensionality of the concept is established and four experience-based knowledge profiles of internationalising firms are identified. First, four types of experiential knowledge are extracted: internationalisation, institutional, business network and social network knowledge. Second, four experiential knowledge profiles are identified: masters, institutional experts, social networkers and learners. The article concludes that experiential knowledge is a multidimensional construct and that internationalising SMEs develop heterogeneous experiential knowledge profiles.

This article examines the relationship between the strategies utilised by small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) for international expansion, and their performance during market turbulence. Analysing the strategy process of firm internationalisation, three main dimensions of this unfolding process are condensed: the scale, scope and speed of firm internationalisation. The influence of these three dimensions on performance during market turbulence is explored using a hypothesised model tested through an integrated dataset combining data pertaining to firm strategy, and performance. The analysis demonstrates that the scope and speed of internationalisation render a positive performance effect, whereas the scale of internationalisation does not. The article contributes to knowledge regarding sustainable and successful internationalisation strategies during times of market turbulence.

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to develop internationalization process theory by examining the relationship between small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) international experience and their degree of insidership in newly opened business networks. Design/methodology/approach - The study applies a quantitative approach. Data were collected on-site at 203 SMEs having entered the Baltic States, Poland, Russia and China. The data are analysed with structural equation modeling in SmartPLS. Findings - The paper reveals that international experience is positively associated with both the country and customer experience in the newly opened business network. Country experience, in turn, is strongly associated with a firm's degree of insidership in the business network. Conflicting with the hypothesized model, no support is found for the direct relationship between international experience and insidership. Nor does the analysis reveal any significant relationship between a firm's customer experience, in terms of variation, in the newly opened business network and the degree of insidership in the network. Research limitations/implications - The paper empirically discriminates different types of international experience derived from theory and examines their relationship with the degree of firm insidership in newly opened business networks. Originality/value - Theoretically this paper advances internationalization process theory by developing its network aspect as well as discriminating different experience types and their role in predicting network insidership in newly opened business networks.

This article is about how SMEs reduce their liability of network outsidership in the process of establishing a network insider position in foreign business networks. By examining how SMEs establish insidership positions in institutionally different business networks, the authors contributes to the network approach to firm internationalization. From a detailed longitudinal and retrospective case study of four SMEs from mature market entering emerging country markets and four SMEs from such immature markets entering mature markets, the authors develop propositions based on intra-group and inter-group analysis. The propositions concern the parties to which the exporter initiates and develops relationships when plugging into the foreign network (the entry node), and how the firm reaches an insider position in this network (the entry process). Three distinct network types are identified along this entry process: the exposure network, the formation network and the sustenance network.

In three institutional environments, this study examines the uncertainty-reducing effects of experiential knowledge of varying specificity in the market entry process. The goal of the study is to answer the research question: What is the uncertainty-reducing effect of experiential knowledge of varying specificity in markets with different institutional distances from a firm's home base? The authors develop a theoretical model using the most recent developments in internationalization process theory. They test the model with a data set collected on-site at 203 small and medium-sized enterprises with entry experience into the new Eastern European Union member-states, Russia and China. The analysis shows no support for the claim that internationalization knowledge reduces uncertainty in the market entry process. Rather, the analysis reveals that societal knowledge of the entering firm has an uncertainty-reducing effect in markets that are relatively less distant from its home market. The analysis also shows that international experiential knowledge of high specificity, an important type of marketing knowledge, provides the greatest uncertainty-reducing effect.