SMEs in the Age of Globalization

The purpose of this volume is to bring together the leading scholarly papers about how globalization has impacted the role of SMEs. In fact, globalization has affected SMEs in two major ways. The first has been to facilitate the transnational activities of SMEs. Transnational activities, ranging from exports to foreign direct investment to participating in global value chains, have become easier as a result of globalization.

The second impact of globalization has been to shift the source of competitiveness towards knowledge-based economic activity, which has led to an increased role for SMEs. The first section of this volume examines how globalization has affected the role of SMEs in the economy. The second section of the volume is devoted to global strategies by SMEs.

The third section focuses on an important type of global activity of SMEs, which involves foreign direct investment. The fourth section focuses on the role of clusters and networks in generating SME competitiveness in global markets. SME export strategies and performance is analyzed in Section Five.

Section Six examines the impact that the international mobility of labor has had on SMEs. The seventh section focuses on the role that SMEs play in trans-national technology transfer. Section Eight is devoted to SMEs in the context of developing countries. In the final section of the volume policy issues are raised.

This includes identifying how policy needs to address barriers to internationalization confronting SMEs.