International Business Background, The Dynamic Capabilities Of The Sme Associations And Their Performance Mechanism

With the increasing globalization of economy, every firm's business activities have been embodied in the international competitive networks. Whether the firms would like to international business or not, their internationalization will start up inevitably when they connect with international economy to some extent. Internationalization is not only the privilege of large multinational companyes, but also the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which can break through the condition of scale and resource and then obtain international growth. In fact, these SMEs with entrepreneurial spirit are becoming the leading actors in international economic activities.The theory of organizational dynamic capabilities (ODC) and organizational change (OC) gave a new perspective for internationalization of SMEs. We confirmed four theoretical issues unresolved: (1) What were the connotation and constructs of organizational dynamic capabilities of SMEs in the context of international entrepreneurship? (2)What were the impacting factors of ODC, and how to build ODC? (3) What did the international entrepreneurial behavior types of firm really mean from the point of ODC? (4) How did ODC influence international entrepreneurial bwhaviors of firms, and then influence the firms' international entrepreneurship performance? Four studies were conducted to answer these questions.Study 1 explored the construct of ODC of SMEs in the context of internationalization. It was composed of two sub-studies. In sub-study 1, the researcher conducted depth interviewing to sixteen entrepreneurs of SMEs on connotative meaning of ODC and its construct based on the literature reviewing. The interviewing courses were recorded by text. Based on the content analysis, it came up with the construct of ODC. In sub-study 2, the researcher wanted to validate the construct of ODC by means of empirical method. Acoording to thes data, EFA and CFA findings showed that the construct of ODC put forward in sub-study 1 is legitimacy in a way. These two studies showed that ODC of SMEs in international entrepreneurship context was a multi-dimensions construct which were searching and absorbing capability (SAC), transforming and integrative capability (TIC), change and innovation capability (CIC), networking and cooperating capability (NCC).Study 2 analized the impacting factors of ODC in the context of international entreprenurship. Before the study, the researcher had put forwarded several critical variables which worked on ODC and had supposed their effects on ODC. Subsequently, empirical study was conducted to confirm these hypotheses. The study showed that the firms' innovativeness and proactivenesss, risk-taking, top management team's (TMT's) knowledge heterogeneity and behavior interaction, entrepreneur's learning compentence were the key factors influencing SAC; the firms' risk-taking, TMT's vision consistency and behavior interaction, entrepreneur's learning compentence were the key factors influencing TIC; the corporate entrepreneurial orientation, TMT's vision consistency and behavior interaction, entrepreneur's learning compentence and international vision were the key factors influencing CIC; TMT's knowledge heterogeneity and vision consistency were the key factors influencing NCC.Study 3 analyzed the international behavior strategies of SMEs from ODC perspective, by means of case studying methods. Firstly, the researcher got some practical clues about international behavior strategies of SMEs from the semi-structured interviewing. Secondly, the researcher supposed four representative international entrepreneurial behavior modes of SMEs based on the theory of ODC, OC and IE. Thirdly, under these theoretical frameworks, the cases were selected from interviewing and enriched by various mediums data collection. And through presenting the critical behavioral characteristics of firm in their internationalization processes, these cases were analyzed and concluded in depth. Finally, these four behavior strategis of SMEs were contrasted with each others. From the perspective of ODC and OC, the researcher found that the international entrepreneurship behavior strategies of SMEs could be classified into four types which were the flexibility adaptive strategy, the vision driven strategy, the rule following strategy, the pressure impelling strategy.Study 4 analyzed the performance mechanism of ODC of SMEs international entrepreneurship in three aspects, adopting questionnaire studying method, sampling on organization level, and depending on structural equation modeling techniques. (1) The effects on international entrepreneurial behaviors made by international environmental characteristics and ODC. It was found that the diversity of combination of SAC, TIC, CIC, and NCC had influences on international entrepreneurial behaviors in various international environments. (2) The relation between international entrepreneurial behaviors and international entrepreneurship performance. The researcher found that the diversity of change fitting mechanism embedded in international entrepreneurial behaviors had different influence on international survival performance and growth performance respectively. (3) It enabled to open up the 'black box' between ODC and international entrepreneurial performance through testing the mediation effects of international entrepreneurial behaviors. The effects on international entrepreneurship performance made by ODC were mainly through its effect on international entrepreneurial behaviors.Based on fit view, this paper put forward and validated the multi-dimensions construct of ODC of SMEs in internationalization context. It also explored the typical modes of internationalization of SMEs relying on ODC perspective. Besides, it further analyzed the performance mechanism of ODC. As a result, these theoretical opinions enabled the SMEs to be aware of the way how to gain and maintain the competitive advantage in international change context.