Title: Heuristics of the internationalisation of SMEs: a grounded theory method

Authors: Hossein Khorrami; Mohammad Zarei; Behrouz Zarei

Addresses: Department of Corporate Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Entrepreneurship, University of Tehran, Farshi Moghadam (16 St.), North Kargar Ave., Tehran 14174-66191, Iran ' Department of Corporate Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Entrepreneurship, University of Tehran, Farshi Moghadam (16 St.), North Kargar Ave., Tehran 14174-66191, Iran ' Department of Corporate Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Entrepreneurship, University of Tehran, Farshi Moghadam (16 St.), North Kargar Ave., Tehran 14174-66191, Iran

Abstract: Heuristics can be an applicable tool, utilised in simplified strategies for solving ill-structured and highly uncertain problems, alike internationalisation of SMEs. International Entrepreneurship (IE) researches suggest; paying more attention to discovering the valuable individual initiatives used in internationalisation of SMEs. The research investigates the Iranian internationalised SMEs to provide a set of heuristic principles for running a successful internationalisation. Analyses of the interview data suggest that heuristics is an instructional tool of internationalisation, which facilitates and accelerates the process of SMEs' internationalisation. The model of internationalisation based on heuristics is extracted from the systematic grounded theory (GT) which originally applies for increasing the chance of discovering the unanticipated happenings as an inductive theory-discovering methodology. The results show, by applying the heuristics-based model of internationalisation, SMEs can make significant contributions in IE such as position stability in foreign markets, problem-solving tools in internationalisation process, sales growth, profitability, and added value generation.

Keywords: a foreign market; developing countries; enterprise development; entrepreneurial intellectuality; grounded theory; growth strategies; heuristics principles; international entrepreneurship; internationalisation; networking; SMEs; small-and medium-sized enterprises; strategic factors; taxonomic analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMED.2017.085040

International Journal of Management and Enterprise Development, 2017 Vol.16 No.3, pp.174 - 206

Received: 17 Mar 2016
Accepted: 29 Jun 2016
Published online: 10 Jul 2017 *

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