Antonio Majocchi

Geographical pathways for SME internationalization: insights from an Italian sample

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of two distinct geographic pathways to internationalization for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Regional and global pathways are juxtaposed to study the influence on export performance of selected key intangible resources, namely, innovation, human resource management, networking and the firms experience.Design/methodology/approach – Building upon a resource‐based view of the firm, Tobit regression models are used to test the hypotheses on a sample of 2,657 Italian manufacturing firms.Findings – The paper provides empirical evidence that the determinants of SME export performance vary in line with the geographic scope of internationalization. While product innovation (innovation) positively impacts on SME export performance, irrespective of export destination, other factors do so selectively. For example, location in industrial districts (networking) and the deployment of external managers (human resource management) exclusivel...

The Importance of Proximity for the Start‐Ups' Knowledge Acquisition and Exploitation

This paper intends to verify the impact of geographical proximity on the processes of knowledge acquisition and exploitation by high‐tech start‐ups considering at the same time the role of both the social and cognitive dimensions of proximity. Our basic assumption is that proximity means a lot more than just geography. The findings from this research broaden our understanding of how start‐ups located inside an industrial cluster acquire knowledge from their customers and exploit it in an innovative way, underscoring the need to reconsider assumptions regarding the importance of geographical proximity between business partners during knowledge management.

Inter-organizational geographical proximity and local start-ups' knowledge acquisition: a contingency approach

Entrepreneurship studies offer conflicting answers to a key research question: What impact does geographic proximity have on the process of knowledge acquisition by start-ups? This study proposes a new, dynamic framework of three interrelated factors that may moderate this impact; it anticipates that the importance of local and distant knowledge networks depends on the life cycle stages reached by both start-ups and industrial clusters, as well as on the dyadic relationships between local start-ups and their business partners. Some additional variables help strengthen the conceptual model and the key research propositions. This study thus offers a new perspective on entrepreneurship research, namely the configuration of start-ups in both spatial and social contexts. Such a view offers two substantial benefits: a greater understanding of the role played by geographical proximity in knowledge acquisition and an impetus for further empirical research in this field. This article concludes with various implications of the proposed model for both theoretical and managerial purposes.

Joint ventures or non equity-alliances? Evidence from Italian firms

This paper investigates the factors affecting the choice between joint ventures and non-equity alliances, when firms enter foreign markets. The authors compiled a database of Italian firms with 879 observations to test possible effects of firm specific characteristics, host country institutional characteristics and cultural distance on alliance mode choice. Using both transaction cost analysis and the resource based view, their findings demonstrate the crucial role played by firm size as well as by institutional and political features of host countries. The results concerning the role of functional activities involved and the industrial sector are mixed. Overall, the analysis shows that it is necessary to develop a more integrated approach to understand this complex choice made by firms when expanding abroad.

Trade and market liberalisation in Eastern Europe: the effects on the FDI location decisions of Italian firms.

SUMMARY The question of why multinational companies (MNCs) choose to locate in one region rather than another has been an important topic in IB research for many years, but has recently received even more attention. This paper presents the results of an econometric investigation of the locational determinants of Italian firms in Central and Eastern Europe. Italian firms have been very active investors in the CEE countries. Our results broadly confirm the findings of previous studies, but we also find that both trade liberalisation and market liberalisation are important influences upon the location decision. If the CEE governments wish to attract further (Italian) foreign investment, then further liberalisation of their domestic economies should be a policy priority.

Internationalisation, cultural distance and country characteristics: a Bayesian analysis of SMEs financial performance

Relying on the accounting data of a panel of 403 Italian manufacturing SMEs collected over a period of 5 years, we find results suggesting that multinationality per se does not impact on the economic performance of international small and medium sized firms. It is the characteristics of the country selected, i.e. the political hazard, the financial stability and the economic performance, that significantly influence SMEs financial performance. The management implication for small and medium sized firms selecting and entering new geographic markets is significant, since our results show that for SMEs it is the market selection process that really matters and not the degree of multinationality.

Distance to Customers, Absorptive Capacity, and Innovation in High-Tech Firms: The Dark Face of Geographical Proximity

This paper investigates the impact of both geographical and relational proximity on the innovative performance of the firm. We address the role of one firm characteristic—its absorptive capacity—as a specific contingency affecting the relationship between different proximities and innovation. Using data from 158 high‐tech firms located in the Tiburtina Valley in Italy, we studied the relationship between these firms and their key customers. Our findings support the need to downplay the role of geographical proximity in promoting innovation. Our results also show that relational proximity to key customers has a complementary relationship with absorptive capacity, which positively moderates its influence on innovative performance.

Firm ownership and internationalisation: Is it context that really matters?

This paper considers the potential role played by different kinds of shareholders in a firms international level, distinguishing the firms quoted in the UK from those listed in the countries of Continental Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain). Our results confirm that different kinds of ownership affect the overall level of a firms internationalisation. Family ownership has a negative impact on foreign sales in the UK but not in Continental Europe, while bank ownership has a negative impact on the scope of FDI in Continental Europe but no impact whatsoever in the UK. Institutional investors positively impact the scope of both foreign sales and FDI in the UK, while in Continental Europe they have a negative impact on foreign sales. These different results contribute to explaining why previous studies that have focused on just one country or a single measurement of internationalisation have come up with such contrasting results.

Chapter 4: Entry Mode Strategies: Are SMEs any Different?

Abstract Adopting a quantitative explorative research design, we employed a sample of 770 foreign market entries in the period 2005–2015 to investigate whether particular entry mode strategies such as joint venture or wholly owned subsidiary are differently chosen by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large firms. Various tests have been carried out revealing that SMEs show some different features compared to large firms when selecting their entry mode. SMEs react differently to economic downturns, and the diversification level is a crucial determinant for their entry choices while it is not for large firms. Moreover, we found for a set of other factors affecting the entry choice of large firms, not being significant for SMEs. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Family Firms and the Choice Between Wholly Owned Subsidiaries and Joint Ventures: A Transaction Costs Perspective

We examine the effects of family control on entry mode choice by integrating Transaction Costs Economics with the family business literature. Using a dataset of 951 foreign investments, we investigate the role of family involvement on entry modes. After controlling for endogeneity, we find that if both the investing and the local firm are family firms, forming a joint venture is preferred, while if only the investing firm is a family firm, a wholly owned subsidiary is more likely. Results show that family control has an important impact on entry modes, an hypothesis that has not yet been fully explored.