The Drives of Internationalization of Chinese Small and Medium Enterprises - An empirical study of Wenzhou footwear SMEs

Abstract: Business internationalization is an inevitable trend. As the development of globalization, significant challenges have to be taken by SMEs. In order to cater to the revolution of technology, small and medium-sized enterprises should continue to develop the domestic and foreign markets in order to survive in the fierce competition and achieve long-term development. Previous researchers have paid attention to exporting activities of SMEs in the internationalization operations. After reviewing the relevant theory, this paper finds that previous research also focused on the process of internationalization. To some extent, it ignored the internationalization drivers. Thus, there has been less focus on other factors that drive SMEs grow globally. In accordance with Etemad (2004) and some other scholars' point of view, this research chooses to study the important drivers in the development of the internationalization of SMEs. This paper builds a model based on push and pull perspective with the entrepreneurial orientation, human capital, the intensity of competition and niche market opportunities, which are incorporated into the model to study their impact on the degree of internationalization. Moreover, the study takes advantage of China’s SME data to make a test. In addition, this paper utilizes two case studies to study the internationalization of Wenzhou footwear enterprises.