Business and Social Networking for Rapid SME Market Entry and Development in China
2017 (English)In: / [ed] Natasha Evers, 2017Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
This article explores how the firm’s business and social relationships influence how adolescent Swedish born globals and Born Again Globals develop their customer base following post market entry into China. Using the network perspective and extant research on Chinese Guanxi, this study shows how Swedish manufacturing exporters leverage their network relationships in different phases the internationalisation process, in term of the extension, penetration and integration upon entry and post-market entry into China. A qualitative case study approach of three Swedish manufacturing adolescent born global and born again firms, on the Chinese market is employed. A framework developed from a network perspective is used to analyze the data. The study demonstrates the importance, and the degrees of impact, of business and social networks in market and post market entry into China. Business networks emerge as most important in the first part of the market entry process and when networks were integrated between China and other markets. However, social relationships had greater impact in facilitating the firm’s commitment of resources and its market penetration into China. The study also shows that business and social networks were interpreted as synonymous in the Chinese business context, in that social relationships (Guanxi) were considered just as important as business relationships from the Chinese perspective. Hence managing social dimensions of the relationship (Guanxi) were just as important as the business dimensions when conducting relationships with their Chinese customer and business partners.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2017.
Keywords [en]
Networks, Market entry, China, Born Globals, Post-market entry, Guanxi, Internationalization
National Category
Business Administration
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-34884OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hh-34884DiVA, id: diva2:1138413
Conference
The 21st McGill International Entrepreneurship conference, Galway, Ireland, Aug. 30th - Sept. 1st, 2017
Funder
Knowledge Foundation2017-09-052017-09-052021-05-20Bibliographically approved