UNIVERSITY OF HULL

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

Word account without bibliography: 2.450
“Small and medium-sized enterprises have as much to gain as to fear from the process of internationalisation”

Nowadays, in the country’s economic development, Small and Medium Enterprises play a major role and their sector represent an important resource in most economies. Moreover we clearly see that economic activities tend to be globalized. We argue to say that system of production and distribution become worldwide.

Globalisation creates a new environment, new structures and new interactions, with the result that dealing decisions and actions in one part of the world have major impact in other places. Globalisation is also a mean that allows companies to be involved in a new technological environment particularly in information processing. In the competitive environment of globalization, internationalization is seen as a growth strategy and an essential means of survival for a growing number of SMEs, regardless of their sectors.

Let’s begin by finding out what internationalisation process means. “The academic literature continues to wrestle with this definition, but the reference position continues to be the Nordic model (Johanson and Wiedersheim-Paul, 1975; Johanson and Vahlne, 1977) which sees the internationalisation process as a linear, gradual sequencial buil-up of events over time.” (DONCKELS R., AERTS R. 1992.)

Internationalization is not a strategic choice only available for large groups, but now also interested SMEs that do not have as many resources as multinational companies.
Saporta (1993) even proposes that internationalization can be seen from the creation a business.

However, the problems for the small and medium companies is that they are not able to split their activities, so the only way they have to face the larger competitors is to react quickly to the changing conditions in order to decrease the risks. Nevertheless, This action limits