Title: SMEs in Samoa: journey towards internationalisation

Authors: Rafia Naz, R.D. Pathak, Gurmeet Singh

Addresses: School of Management and Public Administration, The University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji. ' School of Management and Public Administration, The University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji. ' School of Management and Public Administration, The University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji

Abstract: This paper examines the process of internationalisation of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Samoa. It uses structured questionnaires to collect data from a sample of 78 respondents from Samoa, which were empirically tested through SPSS. The findings stipulate that the business sectors are not different from each other in performance for Samoan SMEs and all the enterprises from Samoa exhibit different change patterns in their export quotas. It further reveals that gender differences do not affect performance of SMEs in Samoa. Our findings have important implications for managers in deciding to go international and in improving their firms| international market performance.

Keywords: Samoa; internationalisation; South Pacific; business sectors; change patterns; export quotas; gender differences; market performance; small and medium-sized enterprises; SMEs; entrepreneurs; indigenous entrepreneurship.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2010.034028

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2010 Vol.10 No.4, pp.499 - 514

Published online: 06 Jul 2010 *

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