International diversification of SMEs: The role of foreign capital

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to empirically examine the relationship between the firms’ ownership and control structure, in particular the presence of foreign capital, and their internationalization levels. The internationalization of Portuguese SMEs depends on a multitude of factors, being the impact of foreign investment inflows directed to industrial SMEs a usually forgotten factor. This paper fills that gap using a balanced panel data of 5,722 firms for an eight year period beginning in 2010, researching if the presence of foreign capital influences the level and scope of internationalization, and controlling for the effects of variables such as profitability, age, size, indebtedness and sector of activity. The country of origin of the foreign capital is considered and possible non-linear effects are also tested. The results evidence that the presence in SMEs of foreign shareholders positively influences internationalization. Also, there seems to exist a non-linear relation between the development level of the country of origin of the share capital and internationalization, with the results indicating that firms with capital originated from more advanced countries attain a higher degree of internationalization.