Déterminants de l’internationalisation des PME françaises Les leviers du développement international des PME françaises : proposition et test d’une hiérarchisation

The relative importance of traditional determinants for internationalization remains mainly unknown. Although the size of a company has appeared as the major determinant for a long time, our empirical analysis have suggested that other factors such as the internationalizing context and the leader have a significant influence on the international development. An approach centered on the main vectors of firm competitiveness and focused on intrinsic properties of SMEs allows offering a different perspective on that issue.

The ambition of this research is to show that the internationalization process goes along a non-linear and deterministic path that is conditioned by idiosyncratic characteristics of SMEs. We aim to find the determinants of internationalization within French SMEs by observing their export performance.

Results show a positive impact of microeconomic factors on export activities for 253 companies. More precisely, a combination of factors such as organization, innovation, ICT and the manager has a significant relationship with export sales in all industries.