Information management for the internationalization of SMEs: Anexploratory study based on a strategic alignment perspective

The ability to internationalize has become a competitive necessity for many SMEs, enabling their survivaland access to larger markets. From an IS research perspective, one important issue is the strategic roleplayed by the firm’s IT capabilities in responding to greater environmental uncertainty and correspond-ingly greater information requirements, and in enabling the firm’s internationalization performance.Given that such a major aspect of the influence of IT on the performance of SMEs has so far been ignored,the following research question is posed: to what extent does the match between the IT capabilities andinformation requirements of SMEs contribute to their internationalization performance? Our researchmodel and hypotheses are based on Tushman and Nadler’s information processing model. In revisitingthis model, the aim was to show its continued relevancy and extend its domain of applicability. In orderto answer the research question, we conduct a survey-based empirical study of 174 Canadian SMEs thathave internationalized their activities. Our results show that a better match between IT capabilities andinformation requirements does indeed exert a positive influence on internationalization performance.We also find that the SMEs’ IT capabilities are influenced externally by the environmental uncertaintyand internally by their internationalization mode.