Social capital and its influence on the internationalisation strategy and process of Chinese SME from the manufacturing industry

Big but also small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are driven by the idea of entering foreign markets. Globalisation plays an important role for many companies. Based on its size and its financial strength, each company has access to a certain amount of resources. SMEs have limited resources. This disadvantage influences, inter alia, internationalisation strategy and process of SMEs. Social capital can compensate disadvantages, and plays a significant role for SMEs and their strategy. This study focuses on the whole internationalisation to clarify the influence of social capital including the generation and use of knowledge and experience for further market entries. Theoretical fundamentals are network and social capital theory, and multiple case-study method. These approaches help to explore the influence of social capital on the internationalisation process and strategy. The results of this study present the significance of social capital for the internationalisation and the limited awareness of SMEs' network resources.