Title: Internationalisation barriers in low-tech South Asian exporting firms

Authors: Suhail M. Ghouse; Omar Durrah; Rishabh Shekhar; Ahmad Arslan

Addresses: Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship, College of Commerce and Business Administration, Dhofar University, Salalah, Oman ' Department of Management, College of Commerce and Business Administration, Dhofar University, Salalah, Oman ' Symbiosis Centre for Management Studies (Nagpur Campus), Symbiosis International Deemed University, Pune, India ' Department of Marketing, Management and International Business, Oulu Business School, Oulu, Finland

Abstract: This research is one of the first to examine internationalisation challenges for emerging economy low-tech SMEs. Based on primary data collected from 175 low-tech Indian firms, our SPSS and AMOS based analysis revealed that internationalisation barriers can be classified into five distinct categories, i.e., managerial, marketing, government, financial and procedural barriers. Findings revealed a strong correlation among different categories of internationalisation barriers. It was further found that procedural and regulatory barriers were most significant for low-tech firm internationalisation. Findings also revealed specific factors like firms' age, sources of new buyers and sources of finance influencing internationalisation barriers. This study uses the resource-based view (RBV) paradigm to show how low-tech firms use internal resources to overcome complicated internationalisation barriers. Our study adds to the internationalisation literature by highlighting low-tech firms' unique challenges and provides insights for practitioners, policymakers, and scholars to help emerging economy low-tech firms compete in international markets.

Keywords: barriers; resource-based view; RBV; internationalisation; emerging economy; India.

DOI: 10.1504/JIBED.2023.136732

Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development, 2023 Vol.15 No.3, pp.460 - 482

Received: 30 Sep 2023
Accepted: 05 Oct 2023
Published online: 19 Feb 2024 *

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