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The study this chapter reports focuses on how network theory contributes to the understanding of the internationalization process of SMEs and measures the effect of network capability on performance in international trade and has three research objectives.

The first objective of the study relates to providing new insights into the international market development activities through the application of a network perspective. The chapter reviews the international business literature to ascertain the development of thought, the research gaps, and the shortcomings. This review shows that the network perspective is a useful and popular theoretical domain that researchers can use to understand international activities, particularly of small, high technology, resource-constrained firms.

The second research objective is to gain a deeper understanding of network capability. This chapter presents a model for the impact of network capability on international performance by building on the emerging literature on the dynamic capabilities view of the firm. The model conceptualizes network capability in terms of network characteristics, network operation, and network resources. Network characteristics comprise strong and weak ties (operationalized as foreign-market entry modes), relational capability, and the level of trust between partners. Network operation focuses on network initiation, network coordination, and network learning capabilities. Network resources comprise network human-capital resources, synergy-sensitive resources (resource combinations within the network), and information sharing within the network.

The third research objective is to determine the impact of networking capability on the international performance of SMEs. The study analyzes 11 hypotheses through structural equations modeling using LISREL. The hypotheses relate to strong and weak ties, the relative strength of strong ties over weak ties, and each of the eight remaining constructs of networking capability in the study. The research conducts a cross-sectional study by using a sample of SMEs drawn from the telecommunications industry in Ireland.

The study supports the hypothesis that strong ties are more influential on international performance than weak ties. Similarly, network coordination and human-capital resources have a positive and significant association with international performance. Strong ties, weak ties, trust, network initiation, synergy-sensitive resources, relational capability, network learning, and information sharing do not have a significant association with international performance. The results of this study are strong (R2=0.63 for performance as the outcome) and provide a number of interesting insights into the relations between collaboration or networking capability and performance.

This study provides managers and policy makers with an improved understanding of the contingent effects of networks to highlight situations where networks might have limited, zero, or even negative effects on business outcomes. The study cautions against the tendency to interpret networks as universally beneficial to business development and performance outcomes.

The study here responds to the view that the crucial problem in strategic management (research) is firm heterogeneity – why firms adopt different strategies and structures, why heterogeneity persists, and why competitors perform differently. The present study applies complexity theory tenets and a “neo-configurational perspective” of Misangyi et al. (2016) in proposing complex antecedent conditions affecting complex outcome conditions. Rather than examining variable directional relationships using null hypotheses statistical tests, the study examines case-based conditions using somewhat precise outcome tests (SPOT). The complex outcome conditions include firms with high financial performances in declining markets and firms with low financial performances in growing markets – the study focuses on seemingly paradoxical outcomes. The study here examines firm strategies and outcomes for separate samples of cross-sectional data of manufacturing firms with headquarters in one of two nations: Finland (n = 820) and Hungary (n = 300). The study includes examining the predictive validities of the models. The study contributes conceptual advances of complex firm orientation configurations and complex firm performance capabilities configurations as mediating conditions between firmographics, firm resources, and the two final complex outcome conditions (high performance in declining markets and low performance in growing markets). The study contributes by showing how fuzzy-logic computing with words (Zadeh, 1966) advances strategic management research toward achieving requisite variety to overcome the theory-analytic mismatch pervasive currently in the discipline (Fiss, 2007, 2011) – thus, this study is a useful step toward solving the crucial problem of how to explain firm heterogeneity.

This study aims to: first, examine the effect of interaction orientation (IO) and brand orientation (BO) on marketing capabilities and small and medium enterprises' (SMEs') performance, and second, assess the complementarity effect of IO and BO on marketing capabilities and SMEs' performance.

A model was developed and tested using a survey methodology. Data were collected from 538 SMEs located in Qatar and analysed by structural equation modelling with AMOS.

First, IO affects SMEs' performance only indirectly via marketing capabilities, whereas BO affects SMEs' performance both directly and indirectly. Second, contrary to expectations, the complementarity between IO and BO produced a destructive/suppressive effect, rather than a synergistic effect, on both marketing capabilities and SMEs' performance, reflecting the importance of a trade-off to enhance both marketing capabilities and SMEs' performance.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the complementary effect of BO and IO on marketing capabilities and performance.

This study aims to examine the potential impact of external complementary resources on inbound open innovation and whether transformative capacity acts as a mediator in the process. If small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are to successfully implement inbound open innovation, they require injections of external complementary resources.

Structural equation modeling was used to conduct confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate measurement model, while ordinary least squares regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses; research data are collected using surveys of 200 Taiwanese-owned SMEs in mainland China.

Empirical results indicate that when SMEs seek to implement inbound open innovation, technological complementarity is the most important factor in resource complementarity. In addition, transformative capacity has a significant mediating role on the relationship between resource complementarity and inbound open innovation.

The contribution of this paper lies in explaining the role played by transformative capacity in the process of inbound open innovation for SMEs through empirical analysis.

This study examines how the complex interplay of innovation, internationalization and learning capability is associated with firm performance.

This study employs a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) over a sample of 2,844 manufacturing firms over the period of 2008–2014.

This study finds a general complementarity between high process innovation, export breadth and high organizational learning capability, and a substitution between R&D and employee training as sources of learning capability. The analyses by firm size suggest that, contrary to SMEs, large firms do not require high export breadth to achieve profitability, which is likely because they enjoy sufficient economies of scale and scope through their strong domestic presence and multiple business units.

This study examines specific facets of the three constructs, and the effect of firm size. Future research could consider other facets and contextual factors, such as managers' competencies, family firm governance or network memberships, which have potential effects on the relationships studied here.

Firms may benefit from the various interplay effects of strategic factors to improve competitiveness. For example, leveraging the knowledge and resources stemming from their presence in multiple countries may significantly increase the efficiency and efficacy of innovation activities, eventually enhancing firm performance.

This study is the first to employ a large sample to test the complementarity of the three activities in achieving superior profitability. The paper also provides a more nuanced view of these relationships by considering the interplay of different facets of internationalization (export breadth and intensity), innovation (product and process) and learning capability (R&D and employee training).

Several studies have proposed that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lack resources and experiential knowledge to internationalise to distant markets. The authors argue that SMEs can handle the lack of these tangible and intangible internal resources through external collaborations; they can achieve success in international markets by collaborating with business partners. The role of inter-firm marketing collaboration and its impact on internationalisation efforts has not been thoroughly studied, particularly in the context of SMEs. This study will thus advance our understanding of SMEs’ inter-firm marketing collaborations and how they influence performance in international markets. In this chapter, authors conceptually develop this line of arguments through an extensive literature review and develop some hypotheses and a framework that can be empirically tested. The authors believe this framework will serve as a starting point for further studies on this topic. Theoretically, we endeavour to contribute by showing that firms can enhance their level of international performance through inter-firm collaboration. The authors believe this type of study would have considerable theoretical as well as managerial implications in this important field of research.

The purpose of this research is to explicate the role of dynamic capabilities in the ability of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to create value and also investigate the relationship among different dynamic capabilities, competitive strategy and SMEs’ value sources.

Empirical evidence based on a survey conducted on a sample of 441 UK-based SMEs was used to test the research hypotheses.

The findings illustrate that sensing, learning, integrating and coordinating capabilities play a significant role in SMEs’ value creation, and competitive strategy mediates the impact of dynamic capabilities on value creation.

This study demonstrates the benefits of understanding the relationship among the four types of dynamic capabilities, competitive strategy and value creation. Moreover, this study contributes to the notion of the contingency nature of dynamic capabilities.

It offers managers insight into the aspects on which to focus their efforts to enhance their firm’s capacity of value creation.

While much of the prior studies have conceptually/qualitatively investigated the financial return of uni-dimensional dynamic capabilities of large firms in the manufacturing sector, this study made a significant effort to quantitatively examine the non-financial value potential of SMEs in service sector through four processes of dynamic capabilities.

This study aims to explore social media capabilities for recruitment in the context of SMEs from the recruiters’ perspective. The conceptual framework is based on a perspective of the RBV that aims to concentrate specifically on the development of IT capabilities in the use of social media for recruitment purposes. In doing so, this study focuses on the following research questions: How do SMEs use social media for recruitment and what are their particularities? What are the capabilities needed to take advantage of social media for recruitment in SMEs? Have these social media capabilities been developed in SMEs? To answer these questions and build an emergent theory about these specific challenges of the digital era, we conducted an interpretive multiple case study in three Canadian SMEs using social media in their HR practices for at least three years.

It was found that there are four main patterns that explain the use of social media for recruitment in SMEs. First, social media is not the first choice when it comes to choosing a recruitment tool. Second, the use of social media for recruitment is not a structured activity. Third, recruiters use social media the same way they do in their own life. Finally, marketing people are often involved in recruitment practices on social media. These patterns stem from the fact that SMEs have shortcomings in their social media capabilities in general and more specifically in recruitment where gaps exist in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes. To our knowledge, this study is the first to explore the use of social media for recruitment and to propose an integrated framework to evaluate social media capabilities. Through the identification and the discussion of a series of practices concerning e-HRM, our results are also helpful in a digital context where SMEs are struggling to keep up with the pace of adoption and use of IT in general.

This research intends to develop a conceptual framework investigating how IT-related resources, namely IT advancement (ITAD) and IT alignment (ITAG), utilization relates to digital marketing capabilities (DMCs) development, which in turn improves business performance (BP), as well as how digital orientation (DO) and technological turbulence (TT) moderate these effects.

This study employs an online email-based survey technique to collect primary cross-sectional data from 388 small and medium-sized enterprises operating in India. Moderated hierarchical regression was used to validate the hypothesized relationships.

ITAD and ITAG are significant drivers of DMCs, and these capabilities positively influence BP. Moreover, DO strengthens the positive effect of ITAD and ITAG on DMCs, with ITAD having a higher impact than ITAG. Similarly, DMCs have a greater positive effect on BP in an environment with high TT.

Despite increased interest in the information technology resources required for the development of DMCs, less attention has been paid to the relationship between ITAD and ITAG resources and DMCs. In addition, few researchers investigate the moderating influence of DO on the relationship between IT-related resources and DMCs, as well as TT on the association between DMCs and BP.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.