According to Ansoff’s model of growth every firm is established on a local market and over time broadens its activity, either developing a broad portfolio of products, or gradually covering the whole territory of a country with its sales. If all the opportunities of diversification strategy and market development strategy are exploited, the next natural step in a firm’s development is internationalisation. The basic requirement for successful internationalisation is attainment of the internationalisation potential. However, not all the firms successfully reaching the appropriate potential enter foreign markets. Some of the firms deliberately stick to the domestic market. The purpose of the article is to ponder over the possible reasons of such behaviour and to propose in-depth research on that.
Research background: The study responses to the internationalisation issue, one of the essential factors of SMEs growth. Particularly to companies' efforts towards setting international cooperation and circumstances obstructing these struggles. The study takes into consideration that internationalisation in specific areas of company's operations differs noticeably. Similarly, different barriers may arise depending on the areas of the company's value chain that are the focus of the enterprises' internationalisation strategies. Purpose of the article: This study aims to identify barriers to internationalisation regarding various areas of a company's value chain. The study employs the Value Chain Model by Porter. Methods: The field data was collected using a questionnaire survey on a sample of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) located in countries in the Baltic Sea region (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland). A multiple regression analysis was performed to determine the impact of barriers on internationalisation. Finding & value added: The study indicates three areas that are most often the subject of internationalisation in SMEs: operations, outbound logistics and marketing and sales. Barriers differ between value chain areas; however, cultural differences and competition are perceived as the most important hindering factors by companies experienced in internationalisation. At the same time, barriers regarding knowledge and finance diminish when companies becoming more experienced in internationalisation in particular value chain areas. This study is one of few employing the value chain framework to examine internationalisation.
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