Journal Article


External resource provision and the international performance of SMEs: A contextual analysis

Abstract

This paper investigates whether different categories of links (core and discretionary) to external resource providers are associated with the international performance of SMEs, as well as the perceived importance of external links for providing specific forms of assistance toward internationalization. A study of 180 internationally active SMEs examines whether these features vary according to the SMEs' contexts, specifically their industry and level of home economy development. The relevance of these two contexts is theoretically informed by resource dependence, environmental munificence and institutional perspectives. SME decision-makers' attribution of importance to discretionary external links predicts stronger international performance, but this is not the case with core market transactional links. Different external parties emerge as important sources of specific forms of assistance toward internationalization. Many of these results are associated with the SME's industry and home economy context. The paper concludes with a new contextually-informed model of SME egocentric networking and implications for practice.

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Authors

Child, John
Narooz, Rose
Hsieh, Linda
Elbanna, Said
Karmowska, Joanna
Marinova, Svetla
Puthusserry, Pushyarag
Tsai, Terence
Zhang, Yunlu

Oxford Brookes departments

Oxford Brookes Business School

Dates

Year of publication: 2022
Date of RADAR deposit: 2022-02-21


Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License


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