Small -and Medium- Sized Enterprises (SMEs) Entering International Market for Sustainable Growth

Increase in globalization and internationalization in markets has created a complex \nbusiness environment for all size firms. This has led to the transformation of the relationships \nbetween firms and growing use of cooperation agreements by all firms especially small -and \nmedium- sized enterprises (SMEs) that are seeking opportunities in international markets. In \nthis direction, as SMEs recognize the need to utilize their limited resources more effectively \nto compete with more powerful competitors in the global arena, owner/managers \ninternationalize their operations by cooperating at the strategic level. The aims of these \ncooperations are to pursue growth opportunities, to access additional relationships, to reduce \nuncertainty and to overcome their size barrier and to expand businesses in the new \ngeographic markets. \nIn the literature, internationalization processes have mainly been studied for multinational \ncorporations (MNCs) but less for SMEs, which tend to have been neglected in \ninternationalization research (Jansson & Sandberg 2008). But a better understanding of the \nprocess of entering international markets will help small firms avoid potential obstacles to \nsuccess (Rowden 2001). In this context, the main purpose of this study is to enhance the \nunderstanding of the cooperative internationalization strategy of SMEs. Our study focuses on \nproviding information on the SMEs business characteristics, the concept of \ninternationalization, motivations, processes, advantages and disadvantages of SMEs’ \ninternationalization, cooperative internationalization of SMEs, network model such as \nSectoral Foreign Trade Companies (SFTC) used in Turkey, and making suggestions for \nowner/managers of SMEs to develop successful foreign market entry process by cooperating \nwith other firms.