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The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of organisational ambidexterity, and identify drivers of and barriers to ambidexterity in the high-tech small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK, using fine-grained qualitative evidence. This is much needed to generate insights on how organisational ambidexterity actually takes place in SMEs.

This study is exploratory in nature, based on qualitative in-depth interview data collected from 20 UK high-tech SMEs in five industries.

The results reveal that SMEs leverage resources through intra-firm and inter-firm collaborations to pursue ambidexterity sequentially or simultaneously, using a range of drivers and overcoming a range of barriers.

The data were gathered from a single informant from each firm. Therefore, more in-depth, longitudinal, qualitative research using multiple sources of data may be required to develop deeper insights into ambidexterity.

Managers of high-tech SMEs need to focus on specific barriers to ambidexterity and devise effective mechanisms to promote the drivers of ambidexterity. The mechanisms to achieve ambidexterity as identified in this study will benefit high-tech SMEs in particular, and firms in general.

The study contributes to the understanding of organisational ambidexterity in high-tech SMEs by exploring the mechanisms through which SMEs implement organisational ambidexterity despite their resource constraints. This counteracts the conventional view that it is difficult for SMEs to pursue ambidexterity.

The main purpose of this study is to explain the combined effects of host country weak network ties and absorptive capacity on the innovative foreign knowledge inflows of international high-tech small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Data are drawn from the two largest and most authoritative German Federal Government census-databases of biotech and nanotech SMEs. A structured survey questionnaire was administered and regression analysis adopted.

This study demonstrates weak network ties in the host country and developing absorptive capacity produce a combined effect that positively influences international high-tech SMEs innovative foreign knowledge inflows. Also, host country weak network ties and absorptive capacity when considered separately, each respectively, positively influence innovative foreign knowledge inflows.

The results help inform key personnel in international high-tech SMEs about the relevance of host country weak network ties and absorptive capacity for foreign knowledge inflows. In addition, the results help policymakers and think-tanks to promote tailored advice and guidance e.g. those policymakers implementing the EU Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan.

There is a recent call in the literature to combine network theory and absorptive capacity theory to better explain knowledge creation in the context of international high-tech SMEs knowledge sourcing. By addressing this call, the study provides a more refined and comprehensive account of international high-tech SMEs innovative foreign knowledge inflows.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the influence of the internet on the internationalisation process and international customer relationship interactions of UK manufacturing small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). The paper is positioned at the interface of the literature on international entrepreneurship and the internet.

The paper discusses the findings from multiple case studies of ten UK manufacturing SMEs from a variety of UK sectors, producing high‐, medium‐ and low‐tech offerings. In‐depth interviews with directors or managers of the SMEs were conducted. Individual and cross‐case analysis was carried out using coding frameworks to reduce and analyse the data and capture patterns in the findings.

The findings reveal how the influence of the internet in the internationalisation process and international customer relationship interactions differed in the high‐, medium‐or low‐tech SME categories. The influence of the internet differed across three main dimensions: the way in which the SMEs invested in and used different internet applications for internationalisation and customer relationship support, the SMEs' perceptions of the internet as a tool to support communication with international customers; the SMEs' reliance on more personal and interactive forms of contact with international customers.

The results demonstrate that the level of technological advancement of an SME's offerings has an important bearing on how these firms adopt the internet in their internationalisation process and gain advantages in their international customer interactions. The managerial implications of the study are relevant for manufacturing SMEs, their customers and government agencies involved with SMEs.

This research is amongst the first empirical contributions to examine the themes of the internet, internationalisation and international customer interactions in UK manufacturing SMEs and to highlight the importance of the level of technological advancement of an SME's offerings in distinguishing the ways in which the internet is used by entrepreneurial small firms in their internationalisation process.

This paper explores key factors influencing high-performing, sustained growth, high-tech small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in South Korea.

A qualitative study is adopted to explore seventeen founder owner-managers of high-tech SMEs who sustained consistent employment growth, greater than the industry average, for seven years. Within the sample, those with higher (10% or over) employment compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) over this period are also compared to those with lower rates.

The study suggests that proactive approaches, such as flexible organization, risk management, fast decision-making and international market entry, are seen as important contributing factors to sustained growth. These findings contribute to a better theoretical and empirical understanding of sustained high-tech SME growth, in a country with a strong entrepreneurial and internationally competitive information technology sector. Also, collaboration across the SME was perceived as making an important contribution to staff development and growth, consistent with stewardship theory.

The sample is based on successful high-tech SMEs, so there are limitations in extrapolating results to other types of firms, sectors or countries.

Key factors identified in this study can be considered by entrepreneurs seeking to achieve sustainable business. These also provide improved understanding for policymakers into the complexity of factors related to sustained and high growth of technology-based SMEs, which many countries are keen to foster to aid national economic growth.

The research provides new evidence exploring the diverse perspectives of founder owner-managers, on the sustained growth and failure in South Korean high-tech SMEs, and how these have changed since the inception of their business.

The purpose of this paper is to examine high-tech small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) supply chain partnerships. Partnerships are considered at the level of business function rather than the entire organisation. Second, the drivers of SMEs to engage in partnerships are assessed to see whether functions engage in partnerships for different reasons. Third, performance per function is assessed to see the differential effect of partnerships on the function’s performance.

In this study, the relationship between the drivers of SMEs to engage in partnerships, four types of partnerships (marketing and sales, research and development (R&D), purchasing and logistics, and production) and four types of functional performances of firms (marketing and sales, R&D, purchasing and logistics, and production) are examined. The data have been collected from 279 SMEs. The proposed hypotheses are tested using structural equation modelling.

The results indicate that there are considerable differences between business functions in terms of the degree of involvement in partnerships and the effect of partnerships on the performance of these functions. This paper contributes to research by explaining the contradictory results of partnerships on SMEs performance.

This study helps firms understand which type of partnership should be established based on the firm’s drivers to engage in supply chain partnership; and which partnership has a significant effect on which type of business performance of the firm.

The originality of this study is to investigate the relationship between different drivers to engage in supply chain partnership and different types of partnerships and different functional performance of firm in a single model.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of technological resources and external research partners on the export performance of Italian high-tech small and medium firms (SMEs).

Methodology/approach – Drawing on the resource-based view as theoretical framework and deriving hypotheses from the export management literature, we used a sample of Italian manufacturing firms to run a two-step analysis. First, a Levene's test is conducted to assess whether SMEs operating in the high-tech sectors differ from those operating in other manufacturing sectors. Second, employing ordinary least squares (OLS) regression we analysed which technological resources and external research partners best discriminate the export performance of high-tech SMEs.

Findings – Our empirical results revealed that: (1) the use of output rather than input measures of innovation better captures the contribution of technological resources on export performance of firms in our sample; (2) product innovations positively and significantly affect the export performance of technology intensive SMEs; (3) among external research partners, universities provide positive spillover effects on their export performance.

Originality/value – This study provides the heterogenic perspective of the high-tech sectors when attempting to explain the influence of technological resources and external research partners on the export performance of SMEs. Second, the study expands the traditional measures used in the literature for firms’ technological resources and it comprehensively analyses innovative inputs and innovative outputs while exploring whether innovative efforts have had a measurable effect on the export performance of high-tech SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate aspects of causation and effectuation decision-making in respect of the planned and unplanned nature of the internationalization strategies of a small sample of rapidly internationalizing, high-tech UK small and medium enterprises (SMEs). These exhibit four different rates of scale of international intensity (percentage of overseas sales to total sales) and market scope (geographical coverage and commitment).

Interviews with managers of 16 independently owned high-technology-oriented manufacturing SMEs were undertaken in this investigation to reduce the potential effect of bias from parental decision-making and firm size, also trade sectoral conditions. These were drawn from an existing database.

Aspects of both causation and effectuation logic were evident in planned and unplanned aspects of decision-making. Moreover, industry factors were seen to affect internationalization strategies in various ways and not least in respect of the need to exploit windows of opportunity in international niche markets and the usefulness of utilizing managers’ experience and networks in the sector in which firms operated.

The contribution of this study is to build on earlier work where authors have used different terminology to describe firms that have internationalized soon after their foundation. Specifically, with respect to the planned versus unplanned nature of respective internationalization strategies and the causation as opposed to effectuation logic in decision-making.

The purpose of this paper is to provide comparative data from a two‐country study; specifically, into the internationalisation strategies of Canadian and UK high‐tech small and medium‐sized enterprises.

The methodology employed involves 24 in‐depth interviews, 12 in each country.

These suggest that the differences between the firms in the two countries were limited; more similarities were identifiable. Specifically, strategy formation is not as systematic as some previous studies, notably those that focus on the “stage” models, suggest. Entrepreneurs and management teams recognise and exploit opportunities in different ways, ranging from planned strategy formation through to opportunistic behaviour; as such, no single theory could fully explain international entrepreneurial decisions.

The implication of the findings is to offer support to the literature that has suggested a more holistic view should be undertaken in international entrepreneurship research.

The main aspect of originality outside of the comparative data involves accounting for the role of serendipity in unplanned overseas market ventures, an issue lacking in much of the earlier literature.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the nature and impact of human resource capabilities and involvement on the firm's performance in the SME sector.

This research is based on an empirical survey of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and their perception of the HR involvement in strategy development in high tech SMEs operating in the electronics industry in the UK. Postal questionnaire is the main data collection instrument for this research. A combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches has been employed for data analysis.

The important conclusion reached is that increasing the core competencies of the firm, in particular in HR, is the key element to the success of the firm. Moreover, it is posed that the growing involvement of the HR in the development and implementation of business strategy will lead to the increased effectiveness of the organisation and the industry as a whole. Finally, the competitive advantage a firm enjoys can come from the distinctive capabilities which provide it with a core competence in HR.

The present study is concerned solely with small and medium‐sized enterprises in the electrical and electronic manufacturing sector in the UK. A further comparative international‐wide study is recommended.

In order to increase firm performance and to benefit from HR capabilities, it is recommended that practitioners and SME CEOs increase the involvement of their HR specialists in the processes of strategic management in their firms.

The principal contribution of this first‐time study has been the attempt to explore the CEO's perceptions of HR, its capabilities and its degree of strategic involvement as significant determining factors to ensure competitive advantages for the firm in a highly changing market.

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.