Purpose

Building upon the insights of the resource-based view and internationalization theories, the purpose of this paper is to examine the role networks play in SMEs' readiness for internationalization. By investigating three different types of knowledge sharing, namely economic-setting, market-specific and customer-specific, the study analyzes their effect on SMEs' readiness for internationalization.

Design/methodology/approach

The four research hypotheses derived by from the analysis of the literature have been investigated by applying the multiple regression technique. By means of an online survey, 300 valid questionnaires were collected and information from a sample of Italian SMEs belonging to 11 agro-food consortia have been analyzed.

Findings

The results suggest that SMEs' readiness for internationalization could be supported by sharing customer-specific, market-specific and economic-setting knowledge with other firms operating within the same agro-food consortium. Additionally, data analysis highlights a negative relation between the risk perception in the process and readiness for internationalization, suggesting the importance of knowledge sharing in reducing the criticality issues of being a newcomer entering international markets.

Originality/value

From a theoretical perspective, this study aims to fill the gap in knowledge management and international relationship marketing literature. Since proposes a combination of different kinds of knowledge that contribute to reducing the criticalities SMEs must face by identifying useful information to be conveyed within the network. From a managerial perspective, the study provides useful insights for the agro-food sector, highlighting how experiential and network knowledge constitutes a pre-condition for managing internationalization complexity and discovering opportunities on foreign markets.

中文翻译：

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加强中小企业国际化准备知识共享的网络模型方法

目的

基于资源基础观点和国际化理论的见解，本文的目的是检验网络在中小企业国际化准备中所起的作用。通过调查三种不同类型的知识共享，即经济环境、市场特定和客户特定，该研究分析了它们对中小企业国际化准备程度的影响。

设计/方法/方法

应用多元回归技术对文献分析得出的四个研究假设进行了研究。通过在线调查，收集了 300 份有效问卷，并对来自 11 个农产品联合体的意大利中小企业样本的信息进行了分析。

发现

结果表明，可以通过与在同一农业食品联盟内运营的其他公司分享特定于客户、特定于市场和经济背景的知识，来支持中小企业为国际化做好准备。此外，数据分析强调了过程中的风险认知与国际化准备之间的负相关关系，这表明知识共享对于减少成为进入国际市场的新人的关键问题的重要性。

原创性/价值

从理论的角度来看，本研究旨在填补知识管理和国际关系营销文献的空白。由于提出了不同种类的知识的组合，这些知识有助于通过识别要在网络中传达的有用信息来减少中小企业必须面对的关键问题。从管理的角度来看，该研究为农业食品部门提供了有用的见解，强调了经验和网络知识如何构成管理国际化复杂性和发现国外市场机会的先决条件。