Internationalisation of SMEs and Changes in Organisational Elements

In the last 15 years, several Traditional SMEs internationalised their production in low-cost countries where they did not have previous selling presence. This paper aims at drawing research attention to this internationalisation phenomenon that we call Production-Oriented Internationalisation of SMEs. Firstly, it is shown that existing theories do not explain Production-Oriented Internationalisation of Traditional SMEs. Subsequently, a framework to direct the research on this phenomenon is proposed. The research is focused on the changes in Organisational elements induced by this kind of internationalisation. The empirical investigation adopted the method of retrospective case studies. The five cases considered are traditional Italian SMEs belonging to different sectors. All the companies internationalised the production in the Eastern Europe in the period 2000-2004. The analysis shows that the Production-Oriented Internationalisation is a phenomenon with both complex and potentially positive implications. The fact that several Traditional SMEs may undertake such a kind of internationalisation process makes this Production-Oriented Internationalisation of significant practical relevance.