Managerial Relationships and SMEs Internationalization

Book excerpt: As the "backbone of the economy," small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key players in the dynamics of local, regional, and global markets, and are often obliged to provide timely responses to the increasingly fierce cross-border competition. However, SMEs internationalisation has temporarily been subject to a wait-and-see policy under the numerous uncertainties and global systemic disruptions. Despite the "new normal" brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, recent studies show that the future still holds the potential to avail business performance opportunities to SMEs, and the hopes of managers for the years to come are reasonably high. Adopting a relationship-centric perspective, the book proposes a deeper analysis of the role of managerial relationship building and development and SMEs internationalization. In the networked economy, relationships are the invisible threads of the highly interconnected world. Either we call them connections, ties, bonds, or links, they are present everywhere marking the very essence of our lives, therefore claiming for wide consideration. Giving way to a stepwise screening of relationships and SMEs internationalization, the book is simultaneously addressed to scholars from different fields of study (i.e., international management, international business, international relationship marketing, etc.) and worldwide decision-makers (i.e., entrepreneurs and managers) interested in conducting smart business abroad.