Internationalization process of Small and Medium Enterprises: Its determinants

Due to globalization effect, changes took place in economic development across countries. Developing economies were a part of this process which requires from companies especially Small and Medium Enterprises to follow economical trend and create a competitive advantage through which it will be able to survive in these markets. The role played by this category of firms is crucial in developed and developing countries, it has a significant contribution to economic growth, employment rate and welfare of the whole country. The best solution to keep these ventures in a continuous progress is to carry on business activities in foreign markets, to identify opportunities and exploit it, to increase market knowledge and resource commitment then to create a competitive advantage in the host market that will secure a sustainable existence. The previous research work done by scholars were more concentrating on internationalization of big corporations and SMEs in developed economies. To study the same process but in an emerging economy context worth in this case. Thus, the purpose of this study is to dig deeply in internationalization process of SMEs through different theories, entry modes and challenges to determine factors influencing such kind of decision and pushing these companies to cross national borders taking Turkey as an emerging market to explore the theoretical framework of the study and to come up with empirical finding where innovation, number of competitors, number of full time employees, taxation and finical access obstacles also age are the main drivers of Turkish SMEs internationalization. Using logit and probit models as methodological tools to analyze an enterprise survey data from world bank 2013.