Title: Internationalisation pathways of small Singaporean family firms: a socio-cultural perspective

Authors: Michael Mustafa; Hazel Melanie Ramos; Stephen Chen

Addresses: The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Jalan Broga, 43500 Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia ' The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Jalan Broga, 43500 Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia ' University of Newcastle, NSW, 2300, Australia

Abstract: There is increasing recognition that the internationalisation of family-firms is becoming an important area of research. Despite the growth of this research area, studies of the internationalisation of family-firms remains limited. Current research in the area has tended to focus on family-firms in largely Western contexts and the economic and familial factors behind their internationalisation. Furthermore, little is known about the internationalisation pathways of family-firms in differing institutional context and the socio-cultural factors that facilitate the features which lie behind it. This study aims to make a start in researching this gap in our understanding. We do this by looking at four case studies of family-firms from Singapore. Based on our findings, we classified firms into one of three internationalisation pathways - traditional, born global and born again global - and we highlight some important differences between the socio-cultural factors that facilitate their internationalisation pathways.

Keywords: family firms; internationalisation pathways; socio-cultural perspective; Singapore; family businesses; traditional firms; born globals; born again globals.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGSB.2013.056903

International Journal of Globalisation and Small Business, 2013 Vol.5 No.4, pp.290 - 311

Received: 20 Feb 2013
Accepted: 04 Jun 2013
Published online: 27 Dec 2013 *

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