TY - JOUR
T1 - The human factor
T2 - Investments in employee human capital, productivity, and SME internationalization
AU - Onkelinx, Jonas
AU - Manolova, Tatiana S.
AU - Edelman, Linda F.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2016/12/1
Y1 - 2016/12/1
N2 - Internationalization offers many strategic benefits to SMEs, but is not easy to accomplish. In contrast to much of the work on SME internationalization, which focuses on the role of the entrepreneur in the internationalization process, the premise of this study is that in SMEs, the investment in the human capital of the entire organization pays off when it is carefully calibrated with the chosen internationalization strategy. We find that firm-level investments in employee human capital are critical for the labor productivity and internationalization in fast internationalizers, but not for those firms that internationalize more slowly.
AB - Internationalization offers many strategic benefits to SMEs, but is not easy to accomplish. In contrast to much of the work on SME internationalization, which focuses on the role of the entrepreneur in the internationalization process, the premise of this study is that in SMEs, the investment in the human capital of the entire organization pays off when it is carefully calibrated with the chosen internationalization strategy. We find that firm-level investments in employee human capital are critical for the labor productivity and internationalization in fast internationalizers, but not for those firms that internationalize more slowly.
KW - Human capital
KW - Internationalization strategy
KW - Productivity
KW - Small-and-Medium-Enterprise (SME) internationalization
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84977521348
U2 - 10.1016/j.intman.2016.05.002
DO - 10.1016/j.intman.2016.05.002
M3 - Article
SN - 1075-4253
VL - 22
SP - 351
EP - 364
JO - Journal of International Management
JF - Journal of International Management
IS - 4
ER -
