IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijmcst/v1y2016i3-4p247-268.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Internationalisation process of Chinese SMEs: the role of business and ethnic-group-based social networks

Author

Listed:
  • Yong Kyu Lew
  • Zaheer Khan
  • Rekha Rao-Nicholson
  • Shaowei He

Abstract

This article examines how emerging market small and medium-sized enterprises (EM-SMEs) leverage business and social networks for their internationalisation. Drawing from the internationalisation process and network literature, it investigates four Chinese SMEs which have effectively entered foreign markets. The sample of Chinese manufacturing SMEs provides a valuable reference for foreign-network constrained EM-SMEs that face challenges and opportunities in their internationalisation process. The findings suggest that both business and ethnic group-based social networks as well as the strength of these networks play an important role in influencing the internationalisation of Chinese SMEs. Particularly, the findings illustrate the importance and complementary role of ethnic ties (i.e., social networks), and relationships with foreign multinationals (i.e., business networks) that enable the internationalisation process of the EM-SMEs.

Suggested Citation

  • Yong Kyu Lew & Zaheer Khan & Rekha Rao-Nicholson & Shaowei He, 2016. "Internationalisation process of Chinese SMEs: the role of business and ethnic-group-based social networks," International Journal of Multinational Corporation Strategy, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 1(3/4), pages 247-268.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijmcst:v:1:y:2016:i:3/4:p:247-268
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=81123
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hazem Ali & Min Li & Zhongli Wu & Xunmin Qiu, 2023. "An Examination of the Identification and Exploitation of International Opportunities Among Chinese Traditional SMEs," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(3), pages 21582440231, September.
    2. Younis, Heba & Dimitratos, Pavlos & Elbanna, Said, 2022. "International entrepreneurial SMEs in the muslim world: The role of religion in the GCC countries," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(5).
    3. Khan, Zaheer & Lew, Yong Kyu, 2018. "Post-entry survival of developing economy international new ventures: A dynamic capability perspective," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 149-160.
    4. Lin, Jingyi & Plechero, Monica, 2019. "Global innovation networks for Chinese high tech small and medium enterprises: the supportive role of highly skilled migrants and returnees," Papers in Innovation Studies 2019/5, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    5. Christopher Richardson & Shaizatulaqma Kamalul Ariffin, 2019. "A Leap of Faith? Managerial Religiosity And Market Entry Decisions," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 277-305, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijmcst:v:1:y:2016:i:3/4:p:247-268. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=450 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.