| 1. |
- Hilmersson, Mikael, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Political knowledge, political turbulence and uncertainty in the internationalization process of SMEs.
- 2015
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Ingår i: European Business Review. - Bingley : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 0955-534X .- 1758-7107. ; 27:3, s. 234-252
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose– The purpose of the study is to examine the political sources of uncertainty in the internationalization process of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).Design/methodology/approach– The authors theoretically derived a research model embracing three hypotheses. These hypotheses are tested on a sample of 203 on-site interviewed SMEs. Regression analysis is used to test two individual hypotheses and one interaction effect.Findings– The regression analysis reveals that political knowledge possessed by the firm reduces uncertainty in the internationalization process. Political turbulence is shown to increase uncertainty in the internationalization. The interaction shows that political turbulence obliterates the uncertainty reducing effect by political knowledge.Research limitations/implications– The authors identifies two main political sources of uncertainty in the internationalization process of SMEs. For managers and business researchers, it is shown that experiential knowledge is useful under stable conditions. When turbulence increases, however, firms need to develop alternative strategies for uncertainty management.Originality/value– This study is the first to test the uncertainty reducing effects of experiential knowledge in turbulent environments. Thus, by running the interaction between political knowledge and political turbulence, the authors shed new light on the usefulness of previous experiences in the internationalization process.
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| 2. |
- Hilmersson, Firouze Pourmand, et al.
(författare)
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Networking to accelerate the pace of SME innovations
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of Innovation and Knowledge. - : Elsevier BV. - 2530-7614 .- 2444-569X. ; 6:1, s. 43-49
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- © 2020 Journal of Innovation & Knowledge This paper investigates how the time to a firm's first innovation affects the continued pace of innovation and how the networking behaviour of the firm moderates this relationship. In doing so, the paper develops a relationship among three constructs: time to innovation, pace of innovation, and networking. We draw on resource accumulation theory and network theories to develop our hypotheses, which are tested on a sample of 203 SMEs. The results indicate that the innovation pace of a firm depends on the capabilities developed. By developing innovation capabilities at an early age, firms are likely to drive market changes instead of being challenged by them. Firms that lag in the innovation process can compensate for this by actively networking for resources and capabilities.
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| 3. |
- Hilmersson, Mikael, 1981, et al.
(författare)
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Pace of innovation and speed of small and medium-sized enterprise international expansion
- 2023
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Ingår i: International Small Business Journal: Researching Entrepreneurship. - : SAGE Open. - 1741-2870 .- 0266-2426. ; 41:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The literature emphasises that technological advances have enabled firms to expand internationally at accelerated speed. Yet, technological advances are treated as a contextual variable and little is known about how firm-level technological innovations influence the internationalisation speed of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). To address this shortcoming, we draw on insights based on capability development theory to establish the effects of innovation timing and pace on SME international expansion speed. We test our conceptual model using a sample of 180 Swedish SMEs and show that the faster the innovation pace, the faster the internationalisation. We then address the boundary conditions of this relationship to show that the elapsed time between a firm's founding and first innovation negatively moderates the positive effects of its innovation pace. Our findings have theoretical, managerial and policy implications.
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| 4. |
- Bai, Wensong, et al.
(författare)
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SMEs' regional diversification : dynamic patterns and home market institutional determinants
- 2023
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Ingår i: International Marketing Review. - : Emerald Publishing. - 0265-1335 .- 1758-6763.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: The authors seek to advance the understanding of small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) internationalization at the regional level and examine the role of home market institutions in this process. Design/methodology/approach: The authors analyze hypotheses with data from SMEs in five country markets and from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. A cluster analysis establishes the regional diversification patterns (based on regional diversification scope, speed and rhythm) and a multinomial regression tests the effect of home market institutions on their adoption. Findings: The results offer a refined picture of SME regional diversification by revealing three patterns: intra-regionally focused firms, late inter-region diversifiers and early inter-region diversifiers. They also suggest that the adoption of these patterns is determined by SMEs' home market institutions. Originality/value: The authors develop a nuanced understanding of SME internationalization by building upon and expanding the regionalization rationale in the internationalization patterns literature. Additionally, the authors address the acknowledged, yet rarely investigated, country-level determinants of internationalization patterns. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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| 5. |
- Bai, Wensong, et al.
(författare)
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SMEs' regional diversification : dynamic patterns and home market institutional determinants
- 2024
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Ingår i: International Marketing Review. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 0265-1335 .- 1758-6763. ; 41:2, s. 358-385
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: The authors seek to advance the understanding of small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) internationalization at the regional level and examine the role of home market institutions in this process.Design/methodology/approach: The authors analyze hypotheses with data from SMEs in five country markets and from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. A cluster analysis establishes the regional diversification patterns (based on regional diversification scope, speed and rhythm) and a multinomial regression tests the effect of home market institutions on their adoption.Findings: The results offer a refined picture of SME regional diversification by revealing three patterns: intra-regionally focused firms, late inter-region diversifiers and early inter-region diversifiers. They also suggest that the adoption of these patterns is determined by SMEs' home market institutions.Originality/value: The authors develop a nuanced understanding of SME internationalization by building upon and expanding the regionalization rationale in the internationalization patterns literature. Additionally, the authors address the acknowledged, yet rarely investigated, country-level determinants of internationalization patterns.
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| 6. |
- Deng, Z., et al.
(författare)
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Rapid internationalization and exit of exporters: The role of digital platforms
- 2022
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Ingår i: International Business Review. - : Elsevier BV. - 0969-5931 .- 1873-6149. ; 31:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Digital platforms have been developing fast which transform the benefits and costs of rapid internationalization of firms on them. Employing transaction cost economics perspective, we argue that the transaction attributes of asset specificity, transaction uncertainty, and transaction frequency, have all changed fundamentally in digital platform-based transactions. They render the organizational learning in rapid Internet exporting to counterbalance the diseconomies of time compression caused by the lack of organizational absorptive capacity. By using the three attributes as underlying mechanisms, we hypothesize that the expansion speed of exporters on digital platforms reduces exit hazards of the exporters. We further hypothesize that digital signals on product quality strengthen the main effect. As for digital infrastructure, we recognize its competing effects and make curvilinear moderating hypotheses. Survival analyses based on 353,636 entries of real transaction records from a digital exporting platform have provided robust findings. This study highlights the importance of examining how the digital platform reshapes the transaction attributes and internationalization-performance relationship. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd
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| 7. |
- Fasth, Jonas, et al.
(författare)
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Small and medium-sized enterprises response to Covid-19: The effect of external openness and procedural management
- 2023
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Ingår i: International Small Business Journal: Researching Entrepreneurship. - : SAGE Publications. - 0266-2426 .- 1741-2870. ; 41:5, s. 465-487
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Crisis management research is strongly influenced by the behaviour of large multinationals with few insights into how small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) mitigate the negative effects of exogenous shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Inspired by the capability-based view on crisis management, we postulate that management openness and degree of interactivity determine SME crisis response. We test our theoretical model with an original dataset of 902 Swedish SMEs compiled from a telephone-based survey conducted in June 2020. We find that formalised procedures for crisis management and openness to input from others, particularly external actors, enhances an organisation’s ability to make a decisive rapid response. We discuss our findings and suggest that formalised procedures and openness are important components of an SME’s rapid response capability.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Hilmersson, Mikael, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Business networks, firm strategy, opportunity development and strategic outcomes : A conceptualization of the initial phase of firm internationalization
- 2015
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Ingår i: Handbook on International Alliance and Network Research. - Cheltenham : Edward Elgar Publishing. - 9781783475483 - 9781783475476 - 978 1 78347 548 3 ; , s. 171-194
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The development of international opportunities is a central catalyst of the firm internationalization process. Previous research has suggested a link between a firm’s network characteristics and the process with which it develops opportunities. In this chapter we integrate findings from the literature on international entrepreneurship with the network view on firm internationalization. We conceptualize the internationalization process by connecting the concepts of business network, firm strategy, international opportunity development and strategic outcomes. Four groups of propositions are developed on the direct and indirect relationships between these constructs. This contributes to the literature by conceptualizing the early stage of firm internationalization and laying the conceptual groundwork for future research examining and testing the ways in which different types of opportunities are developed and the strategies for firms to follow in this process. © Jorma Larimo, Niina Nummela and Tuija Mainela 2015.
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| 10. |
- Hilmersson, Mikael, 1981, et al.
(författare)
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Business unpredictability, improvisation and business network commitment in small and medium-sized enterprise market entry
- 2022
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Ingår i: International Small Business Journal. - : SAGE Publications. - 0266-2426 .- 1741-2870. ; 40:8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Market entry performance is critical during internationalisation; prevailing views suggest that firms need to carefully plan their entry before putting the plan into action. This article focuses on three attributes affecting the possibility and usefulness of making a pre-planned market entry: unpredictability, improvisation and business network commitment. We develop six hypotheses tested on a sample of 250 entries; our main finding is that improvisation plays a mediating role in relation to performance in unpredictable markets. The analysis reveals that the relationship between unpredictability and network commitment is not significant, while the effect of unpredictability on market entry performance is negative. These findings suggest implications for internationalisation and international entrepreneurship theory. For managers and entrepreneurs, we show that unpredictability weakens market entry performance, a negative effect that can be mitigated if the entrant firm improvises.
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