Internationalization of European SMEs towards Emerging Markets

• Main Authors: Jolanda Hessels, Madeleine Kemna
• Format: Report
• Language: unknown
• Subjects: Norway; Iceland
• Online Access: http://www.entrepreneurship-sme.eu/pdf-ez/H200817.pdf

Emerging markets used to be closed economies that have only recently begun opening up their markets to the world economy. In addition to multinational enterprises (MNEs) small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) from developed countries have also started to undertake international activities in emerging markets. This paper investigates whether SMEs from higher-income European countries that operate in emerging markets are different from SMEs that operate exclusively in other developed markets e.g. in terms of their firm characteristics, internationalization motives and perceived internationalization barriers. The empirical analysis uses firm-level data for 3,698 internationally active SMEs located in 19 European countries (i.e. EU-15, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland).