Internationalisation Strategies and Firms Performance. A Co-Evolutionary Study on Italian SMEs

Q3 Business, Management and Accounting

International Journal of Globalisation and Small Business Pub Date : 2020-08-13 DOI:10.1504/IJGSB.2020.10020702

Matteo Cristofaro, Giacomo Caterini

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The hypercompetitive business landscape that SMEs are currently facing is increasingly pushing them to internationalise their businesses. In doing that, entrepreneurs and executives make important strategic choices related to their investments in cost leadership and differentiation strategies to improve, or at least maintain, their current performance. However, despite the great interest of scholars on this theme, there are no studies about the effects of these different courses of action on firms' performance, especially considering the concurrent influence of sectorial and macroeconomic trends. This contribution, which looks at the dialectical relationship between firms' strategic choices and their environment according to a co-evolutionary perspective, tries to fill this gap presenting evidence from a panel study of 4,098 Italian SMEs over ten years (2008-2017). Findings show that environmental trends and strategic choices simultaneously influence internationalised SMEs' performance and that these firms adapt their strategic choices according to market munificence. Entrepreneurs and executives of SMEs may benefit from the results of this study in order to make better strategic choices when defining their internationalisation strategies.

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国际化战略与企业绩效。意大利中小企业协同进化研究

中小企业目前面临的竞争激烈的商业环境正日益推动它们将业务国际化。在这样做的过程中，企业家和高管会做出与他们在成本领先和差异化战略方面的投资相关的重要战略选择，以提高或至少保持他们的当前业绩。然而，尽管学者们对这一主题非常感兴趣，但没有研究这些不同的行动方案对企业绩效的影响，特别是考虑到部门和宏观经济趋势的同时影响。这篇文章从共同进化的角度审视了企业战略选择与其环境之间的辩证关系，试图填补这一空白，提供了十年（2008-2017年）对4098家意大利中小企业进行的小组研究的证据。研究结果表明，环境趋势和战略选择同时影响国际化中小企业的绩效，这些企业根据市场的宽裕度调整其战略选择。中小企业的企业家和高管可能会从这项研究的结果中受益，以便在制定国际化战略时做出更好的战略选择。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

International Journal of Globalisation and Small Business Decision Sciences-Information Systems and Management

CiteScore

1.90

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The goal of the IJGSB is to explore the opportunities and threats of globalisation for small businesses as well as small businesses" strategic options in an increasingly global world. Dramatic changes in contemporary society and the economy have impacts on small businesses. The changing environment negatively influences the development and survival of smaller organisations in some areas and creates new opportunities for small businesses in others. Small firms" managers increasingly have to cope with global as well as local competitive dimensions. Research in this broad field thus is highly relevant.