Evaluating people-related resilience and non-resilience barriers of SMEs’ internationalisation

Abstract

Purpose People-related factors are very significant barriers for the internationalisation of large and small firms. Although the literature has identified a number of steps that SMEs need to take to increase their resilience in international markets, a study that identifies both the resilience and non-resilience barriers for SME internationalisation has not been undertaken in the scientific fields Human Resource Management and International Business. This paper aims to examine resilience and non-resilience barriers faced by SMEs in a developing country. In addition to the resilience literature, they examine non-resilience and combine its characteristics with resilience barriers from the Bangladeshi context. Design/methodology/approach Quantitative data analysis technique is used in this study to identify the impacts of these resilience/non-resilience issues’ internationalisation of SMEs both from micro and macro levels. This study has used primary data collected through the questionnaires from 212 Bangladeshi SMEs. Based on the data, this study has developed and validated partial least square-based structural equation model to assess the impacts of resilience factors on the internationalisation of SMEs with particular attention to entrepreneurial attractiveness. Findings It has successfully framed resilience vs non-resilience barriers of the internationalisation of SMEs as a second-order hierarchical reflective model and found that internationalisation of SMEs is significantly influenced by the resilience factors where language and related socio-cultural issues are marginally more significant. Research limitations/implications A couple of limitations include the following. First, concentrating on resilience and non-resilience serves as a limitation as the authors could have had resilience vs other categories such political, economic, legal and technological barriers. Second, they have mainly used cross-sectional data by using the survey method. This study could have been better served had they also tried to combine the use of qualitative analysis as attempted elsewhere. Practical implications Practically, this study researched in an area which was neglected and under-reported by existing studies. Its exploration showed that it has potential to contribute significantly to the policymakers and implementers, as it comprises SMEs and emerging countries. It has been noted in the literature that these economies and firms are less capable to conduct research independently, as they are resource-constrained. Social implications The results reveal that both resilience- and non-resilience-related barriers are significant to SMEs internationalisation. However, if policymakers were to give priority to any one of these, they should give marginally more priority to resilience-type barriers compared to the non-resilience barriers to internationalisation. Originality/value To date, studies on resilience have concentrated on identifying challenges faced by firms and what types of behaviours are required by individual members so as to enhance survival. However, there are no studies so far on identifying or even modelling both resilience and non-resilience barriers within the context of SMEs internationalisation in developing countries. This study combines resilience and non-resilience factors in a model to find out their contribution especially in the under explored area of non-resilience from a Bangladeshi contextual perspective that seeks to encourage international entrepreneurship.

Examining economic and technology‐related barriers of small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises internationalisation: An emerging economy context

“…Consequent upon North (), theoretical assumptions and empirical findings (such as, Mendy & Rahman, ) stated that the nature of institutions in a given society or country could either be a curse or blessings. Similar findings were noted in Rahman and Mendy () as they referred that the diverse forms or manifestation of institutions could serve as barriers and/or provide incentives for SMEs to grow or cease to exist.…”

“…The results indicate that the items measured in this research possess statistically significant at the 1% level ( p < .01; see Table ), and each item loading is higher than 0.70, which is also satisfactory (Mendy & Rahman, ). Values of Cronbach's alpha for all latent constructs were above 0.7, demonstrating unidimensionality and high internal consistency of the measurement scale (Rahman & Mendy, ). Moreover, AVE (shown in Table ) both for administrative and economic regulatory barriers is also well above the modest threshold point of 0.50 (Fornell & Bookstein, ), which also indicates that each construct captures adequate variance from its items and all the constructs are conceptually distinct (Rahman et al, ), which ensure the convergent validity of all the scales used in the model.…”

Internationalization as a strategy for small and medium‐sized enterprises and the impact of regulatory environment: An emerging country perspective

“…Despite the benefits and opportunities that SMEs can exert from participation in international markets, SME involvement in trade remains relatively limited (WTO, ). This holds true for Bangladeshi SMEs as well (Mendy & Rahman, ; Rahman, Billah, & Hack‐Polay, ; Rahman & Mendy, ). The International Trade Centre's report from 2017 notes that Bangladesh has unrealized potential to increase exports as it has diversification opportunities in food processes, wood industry, such as wood marquetry, ornaments of wood, and prepared and processed pineapples.…”

Using the “best‐fit” approach to investigate the effects of politico‐economic and social barriers on SMEs' internationalization in an emerging country context: Implications and future directions

“…An HR model that integrates the complexities has been missing within the informal (Williams & Horodonic, ) and formal entrepreneurial business (Zhou, Zhangand, & Shen, ) and even the theoretical postulations (Paul et al, ). It is only recently that attempts are made to remedy such missing aspects (Rahman & Mendy, ). However, we still do not know what their impacts on SMEs' service and product mobilization might be (Alon & Rottig, ; Balboni et al, ).…”