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Internationalisation of SMEs: Options, Incentives, Problems, And Business Strategy
Mohd Khairuddin Hashim & Romle Hassan Faculty of Business Management University Utara Malaysia

ABSTRACT Internationalisation presents firms with various opportunities to expand their business activities. The review of the small business literature however, indicates that as a field of study, internationalisation has not attracted much research attention, particularly among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Malaysian context. This study initiated an attempt to address this issue. More specifically, the study strived to explore the internationalisation options, incentives, problems, and business strategy among manufacturing SMEs.

INTRODUCTION Globalisation offers various internationalisation opportunities to not only large enterprises, but also to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Internationalisation provides firms with opportunities to expand their sales, lower their costs, and improve their profits. Although internationalisation presents firms with tremendous opportunities, the complexities and challenges of international marketplace appear to restrict their interest and frustrate their efforts at internationalising (De Noble et.al, 1989; and Burpitt and Rondinelli, 2000).

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In the case of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), they seemed to be slacking in the area of internationalisation. In spite of the fact that international markets can provide them better opportunities for long term growth and profitability, their share of export sales is disproportionately lower than their share of sales in the domestic economy (Acs, Morck, Shaver, and Yeung, 1997). For example, in Malaysia, although SMEs made up of more than 90 percent of the total manufacturing firms, currently these firms are just exporting less than 20 percent of their total output.

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