Internationalisation Strategy of Knowledge-Intensive Business Services

Abstract

This paper is based on the results of a questionnaire sent to chief executive officers of KIBS firms in Portugal. The aim of this research is to explore the effects of knowledge, cooperation and innovation on their internationalisation strategy. The study used a quantitative approach, based on a sample extracted from the Survey of the Scientific and Technological Potential, with KIBS activity in 2014/2015. Upon the completion of data collection, systematisation of data was done through factor analysis and multiple linear regression that allowed conclusions to be drawn about the objectives proposed. On the one hand, our results show that knowledge personalisation has a positive influence on proactive strategies of internationalisation, such as external innovation and new organisation methods. When KIBS cooperate with clients, a positive impact on reactive and cost strategies of the internationalisation can be verified. On the other hand, reactive and cost strategies of internationalisation are negatively influenced by knowledge personalisation,

Factors affecting SMEs' strategic decisions to approach international markets

“…As suggest by some authors (Raoul et al, 2015;Braga et al, 2018;Forte and Moreira, 2018), the internationalisation is a necessary strategy for a firm's growth and survival particularly for SMEs operating in small or saturated markets, as is the case in Portugal where the exports played a very important role as the engine of economy growth especially given the recent period of economic recession. Given that SMEs dominate European industry, in particular for Southern European countries that have some similarities it is very important to examine the factors affecting the SEM strategic decisions in order to devise adequate policies to promote SMEs internationalisation.…”

Knowledge Management Maturity: Development of Maturity Scales and Interaction between Key Areas

“…In this sense, the results agree with one of the three identifiable stances in the literature that shows itself in favor of equally recognizing the importance of both. However, it is worth noticing the parity of the impacts of technology and culture, since previous studies suggest that this hard key area is relevant, especially in developed countries, which score low on the power distance dimension in the country's culture (Merono-Cerdan et al, 2007;Braga et al, 2018;Buenechea-Elberdin et al, 2018). This is contrary to what happens in emerging countries, where the operation of the multinational is concentrated.…”

E-business capabilities and innovation performance: The mediating effect of knowledge management strategies

“…In this context, codification plays an important role in how e-business capabilities influence the company's innovation performance. On the one hand, e-business capabilities are a facilitator to the codification strategies since they make it possible to capture, record, and store valuable knowledge and acquired experiences to make them available to the organization through documents and systems, with the aim that existing knowledge can be used and located more efficiently by anyone (Braga et al, 2018;. On the other hand, codification allows for reusing knowledge, saving time, reducing coordination and communication costs (Buenechea-Elberdin et al, 2018), and having more timely and accurate information for decision-making (Gregory et al, 2017) which facilitates the availability of explicit knowledge to produce creative ideas that may help to remain ahead of competitors, create product innovation, and increase performance (Choi et al, 2008).…”

“…Based on the above, the aim of this study is to analyze the mediating effect of knowledge management on the relationship between e-business capability and innovation performance, particularly the two traditional knowledge management strategies -personalization and codification -the former oriented toward the interaction among people for the exchange of tacit knowledge, and the latter focused on the documentation of people's knowledge and the exchange of explicit knowledge ( López-Nicolás & Meroño-Cerdán, 2011;Braga et al, 2018;Buenechea-Elberdin et al, 2018). This mediation could be found given that the direct effects of e-business capability are insufficient to obtaining superior innovation performance, and a positive impact of ebusiness capability could only exist if there is an intermediation of the two knowledge management strategies.…”