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This paper aims to propose and test a model examining the relationship of guanxi with new product performance and customer loyalty in the context of internationalizing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China. Social network theory and information processing theory provide the theoretical lenses for this research.

Guanxi with suppliers, distributors and customers is measured as a second-order construct consisting of ganqing, renqing, and xinren/xinyong. Research hypotheses are tested using survey data (n = 212) gathered in Anhui and Shandong Provinces. The data are analyzed using smart partial least squares technique.

The findings reinforce existing studies, which show that a locally based social network can be extended to the success of early-internationalizing SMEs. Results also suggest that the relationship between guanxi and customer loyalty is stronger when technical uncertainty is low and when market uncertainty is low rather than high.

The data were gathered from the point of view of the SMEs and may not accurately reflect the perspective of the foreign customer. The findings may not generalize beyond the regions surveyed. The study does not differentiate among the type of supply chain member, and the location of the supply chain member was not measured.

Although guanxi is typically viewed as being localized within a country, guanxi with suppliers, distributors and customers can provide information and resources needed for successful export products. Second, internationalizing SMEs must understand that even though guanxi has positive impact on new product performance which directly leads to customer loyalty only when uncertainty is low.

Although guanxi has been studied, there are a limited number of empirical studies of guanxi in a supply chain context and most focus on buyers’ guanxi with suppliers. The research on guanxi with customers and distributors is also limited. This research addresses this gap by focusing on guanxi with suppliers, distributors and customers.

The purpose of this study is to gain insight into existing empirical studies on performance management of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It categorizes the main antecedents for SMEs’ performance, the dimensions of SMEs’ performance and all variables used as moderators in the conceptual relationships.

This study undertakes a systematic literature review of 58 articles published in 33 peer-reviewed academic journals from 2000 to 2020 followed by a synthesis of individual studies to analyze the trends and background of research into SMEs.

A new academic conceptual model was developed grounded in selected theoretical lenses to advance our understanding of the different categories of antecedents, moderators and SMEs’ performance dimensions.

The author has provided a future research agenda in the context of SMEs. Future studies may investigate the role of different categories of determinants, the influence of key cultural values, the digital capability in SMEs and the Internet in the internationalization of SMEs.

This paper offers a framework for both practitioners and scholars in thinking about those factors that may be critical for success in SMEs.

This is a systematic review that suggests a new conceptual model of what existing empirical studies have found on SMEs. It can be used to influence thinking and research design in the area of SMEs’ performance and success.

This article aims to explore how cluster affiliation moderates the relationship between family involvement and speed of internationalization in family firms. The speed of internationalization is examined in terms of earliness and post-internationalization speed.

The research is based on a sample of 639 Portuguese family businesses (FBs) created and internationalized between 2010 and 2018 that was retrieved from the Iberian Balance Analysis System – SABI database. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to assess the measurement and construct the model.

The results suggest that higher levels of family involvement in ownership and management make family firms enter on international markets in later stages of their development but, after the first international market entry, the firms are able to exhibit a higher post-internationalization speed. When considering the effect of cluster affiliation, the authors found that clustered FBs are more likely to engage in early internationalization and to accelerate the post-internationalization process than non-clustered FBs.

The study's findings are explained by the existence of socially proximate relationships with other cluster members, based on similarity, trust, knowledge exchange and sense of belonging, which push family firms to internationalize and increase their level of international commitment over time. The empirical evidence, therefore, highlights the primary role of industrial clusters in moderating the relationship between family involvement, earliness of internationalization and post-internationalization speed.

The literature on international entrepreneurship offers two competing views on why new ventures internationalize: (a) the nature of the opportunity pulls them international or (b) the founder pushes the firm international. While these two internationalization drivers are not independent, they do represent unique causal mechanisms. Previously, the tools available to understand the entrepreneur’s disposition toward internationalization were limited. The present study uses the theoretical foundation of the international entrepreneurial orientation construct and from it develops and tests an attitudinally-based individual-level measure of disposition toward internationalization. To ensure the validity and reliability of the new measure, termed International Entrepreneurial Orientation Disposition, studies were conducted to: develop new scale items, examine their psychometric properties and construct validity, and demonstrate criterion validity. A strong measurement model is developed using structural equation modeling (CFI = 0.93, RMSEA = 0.07), and the measure is shown to be useful as a predictor of perceived international venture attractiveness.

This study aims to shed light on the lack of understanding and previous mixed results regarding why and how some internationalised firms take advantage of host-home country similarity (HHS) while others do not.

Direct and mediating hypotheses are examined through an empirical investigation of 156 CEOs in internationalised Spanish companies, using structural equation modelling validated by factor analysis.

The results suggest that exploitation (EI) and exploration (ER) constitute important learning mechanisms that impact on the liability of foreignness when internationalising a business. In particular, the positive influence that HHS has in international firm performance (IP) depends on both exploitative and exploratory learning.

This research adds insights into the importance of two of the main components of organisational learning (i.e. ER and EI) as mediators of the HHS and IP relationship, which can help senior managers or business owners make consistent decisions by matching potential international market locations with firm learning factors.

This study clarifies contradictory theoretical assertions and mixed empirical results about how HHS impacts on international performance. In particular, by responding to recent calls for research, this study has shown that organisational learning is a key component in the aforementioned link where ER and EI positively mediate this relevant relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to address internationalisation of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by specifically focussing on collaborative entry modes. Despite significant research done on market entry and internationalisation strategies of firms, the use of collaborative entry modes by SMEs during internationalisation has not received a lot of attention. The authors contribute to foreign market entry studies by analysing the influences of cognitive dimensions on collaborative entry mode choice (equity vs non-equity modes) of SMEs in their international markets.

The authors analyse the influences of cognitive dimensions on the choice between equity-based vs non-equity-based collaborative entry modes. The empirical sample consists of internationalisation strategies of 345 Italian SMEs, where the authors used a questionnaire to collect the data. The authors use structural equation modelling to analyse influences of factors like asymmetric information, informal institutional distance, time trends of country, perception of size and resources of potential host country partners, and perception of host country partners’ power on this important market entry mode.

The results show that high informal institutional distance leads to preference of non-equity-based collaborative entry mode by Italian SMEs. The authors also find that positive time trends of the host country, positive perception of size and resource of the local partner, as well as the local partners’ power leads to preference of equity-based collaborative entry mode by Italian SMEs.

This study focusses on an ignored aspect of market entry strategies, i.e., equity vs non-equity collaborative entry mode choice of SMEs. The authors use insights from resource-based view and cognitive dimensions literature, to address the influences of five cognitive dimensions on the collaborative entry mode choice of SMEs during their internationalisation.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether each level in international networking (network extension, network penetration and network integration) matters in the internationalization of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The study adopted a cross-sectional and correlational research design. The data were collected through a questionnaire survey of 206 exporting SMEs in Uganda. The study employed a structural equation modelling (SEM) technique using partial least square (PLS) to test the hypothesis.

The findings revealed that network extension and network integration do matter in SMEs’ internationalization, while network penetration does not.

SMEs in developing countries need to concentrate on network extension and network integration levels to successfully internationalize their operations.

The study provides initial evidence on whether network extension, network penetration and network integration matter in SMEs’ internationalization in developing countries like Uganda.

International entrepreneurship and marketing research reports the impact of effectual decision-making logic on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) international performance. How the effectual logic of decision-making enhances the overall performance of SMEs in international business-to-business markets remains a puzzle in the field. The purpose of this study is to investigate the concept of networking capability as an important SME capability translating effectual decision-making into international performance.

The authors examine the model presented in this study using quantitative data from 153 founders or managers in charge of international business at SMEs throughout New Zealand. The authors also used 142 open-ended responses to provide post hoc exploratory analysis.

The findings of this study suggest that networking capability is a mechanism through which the logic of decision-making enhances the international performance of SMEs.

This study bridges between international marketing and entrepreneurship by investigating how the networking capability of internationalizing SMEs translates their founders’/managers’ effectual logic into a successful performance in international business-to-business markets.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.

This study aims to investigate the effects of adaptive selling, as a high-level individual-level marketing capability, institutional knowledge, international opportunity recognition and general innovation-orientation of managers on the international growth of Iranian small- and medium-sized enterprises. Also, drawing on strands of research into early internationalisation firms, this study attempts to determine the impact of precocity and speed of internationalisation as a moderator of the relationship of antecedents to international growth.

The research is based on answers of 748 managers from 186 firms to a self-reporting questionnaire. The partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling approach was used to assess the measurement and construct the model. Furthermore, the study used a PLS multigroup design with four groups of firms to compare the paths with regard to precocity and speed of internationalisation.

Significant associations for seven out of eight hypotheses were found. The international opportunity recognition was found to mediate the relationship between institutional knowledge and adaptive selling-innovativeness. Additionally, the results of the comparisons found important implications to early and fast internationalisation.

This study shows that international growth stems from individual innovation orientation. It sheds light on the importance of institutional knowledge, adaptive selling and opportunity recognition for early and pacey internationalisation. The findings contribute to the international entrepreneurship literature based on both the early and gradual internationalisation.