Towards Understanding Small Firm Internationalisation - A Technology Based SME Focus

This paper looks beyond the main theories of internationalisation, and at the opportunity paradigm in entrepreneurship theory, to explain the internationalisation processes in three small technology based firms. It argues that the internationalisation theories, ie, the stages theories, the economic theories and the network theories form a partial model for understanding the internationalisation of technology based SMEs. This paper adopts the opportunity perspective from existing entrepreneurship theories to enhance understanding of the internationalisation process of selected small technology firms. It hypothesises that “opportunity enactment” plays a major role in technology SME internationalisation and merits more attention. It describes the selection of firms and specific hypotheses to examine in the ongoing in-depth empirical study.