Exploring the Internationalisation Process of Small Businesses: a Study of Dutch Old and New Economy Firms

The focus of this paper is on the internationalisation process of small businesses. We investigate if, how and why small firms use a cooperative or autonomous strategy to internationalise their activities and the possible changes in this use of strategy over time. We assume that, because of unique resource constraints, small firms opt for a cooperative internationalisation strategy. We examine not only the impact of firm- but also of industry characteristics. The empirical investigation uses a sample of Dutch firms from two different sectors: one that can be labelled as typically ‘old economy ’ (i.e. mechanical engineering) and one that can be described as ‘new economy ’ (i.e. computer software). Key Results Results show that small firms follow an evolutionary internationalisation path (with incidental set-backs), while a majority prefer a cooperative internationalisation strategy. In contrast with expectations, type of industry does not matter