Title: Harnessing social media business affordances for internationalisation: multiple case study of small and medium-sized enterprises

Authors: Heini Vanninen; Joel Mero; Charmaine Glavas

Addresses: LUT University, PL 20, 53851, Lappeenranta, Finland ' University of Jyväskylä, Seminaarinkatu 15, 40014 Jyväskylän Yliopisto, Finland ' Queensland University of Technology, GPO Box 2434 Brisbane, 4001, Australia

Abstract: This study examines how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) leverage social media affordances in their internationalisation pursuits. A multiple case study of eight SMEs representing business-to-business and business-to-consumer firms from Australia and Finland reveals that social media affordances are used for internationalisation pursuits via three core activities: 1) generation of market intelligence; 2) marketing communications; 3) relationship marketing. Furthermore, when conducting these activities, SMEs were found to employ either firm-centric or market-centric logic that led to the identification of six unique social media business affordances. The study contributes to theory by demonstrating how social media business affordances are harnessed for internationalisation and showing the implications of firm-centric and market-centric logics in the execution of social media activities.

Keywords: social media; digital technologies; affordance theory; digital marketing; internationalisation; small and medium-sized enterprises; SMEs.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEXPORTM.2022.128742

International Journal of Export Marketing, 2022 Vol.5 No.2, pp.141 - 162

Received: 31 Mar 2022
Accepted: 27 May 2022
Published online: 02 Feb 2023 *