Small firm internationalisation competence

We reveal competence from the perspective of task accomplishment and what makes performance possible for owner-managers of small internationalising firms. In doing so, we contribute to the emerging topic of small firm internationalisation competence by focusing on the owner-manager rather than on the firm. We contend that competence is not attribute-based but rather is relational in nature. By using a relational approach and applying phenomenography as a qualitative analytic we reveal not only what constitutes small firm internationalisation competence but also revealed is the variation in the way owner-managers organise their knowledge and skills into sets of distinctive competence. Our findings demonstrate that owner-managed small firm internationalisation competence is not defined primarily as a set of attributes or owner-manager characteristics/traits, but rather internationalisation competence is defined by the way owner-managers understand firm internationalisation