The Internationalization Process of Small and Medium Companies: the Itlas&LaborLegno Case Study

Abstract

Small and medium companies’ presence in the international marketplace is consistently increasing in the last decades, arising the interest of several authors and researchers. The existing internationalization literature can be mainly divided into two main fields, the International Business and International Entrepreneurship one. Nonetheless, neither of them alone is able to fully describe the principal factors determining SMEs internationalization’s strategy and performance in the foreign countries. The analysis of the two domains, the International Business and International Entrepreneurship one, together with a qualitative in depth evaluation of the case study Itlas&LaborLegno, promise to solve the research gap identified by many scholars, constituted by the sharp distinction between the two internationalization fields. Overall, this research aims to gain a better comprehension of SMEs’ internationalization process, their definition of competitive advantage and the adopted marketing strategies and tactics, able to overcome SMEs’ lack of financial and tangible resources