A Possible Relationship Between Internationalization and Innovation Strategies: An Analysis of Portuguese SMEs

Abstract

The importance of internationalization for firm’s survival and growth seems to be consensual among the researchers on this topic. Innovation is also considered a key factor for firm’s development and competitiveness. Moreover, the relationship between innovation and internationalization has become a matter of increasingly interest in the literature and can be analysed according to two streams: innovation as cause or consequence of companies’ internationalization. Additionally, given the great importance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for the growth of economies, part of literature has paid special attention to this kind of enterprises. The purpose of this work is to verify the existence of a possible relationship between internationalization and innovation strategies among Portuguese firms by exploring whether Portuguese entrepreneurs consider innovation as an important factor or a motivation in the internationalization process. To achieve this goals, and based on data obtained from an online questionnaire survey, descriptive and inferential data analysis techniques are used. In particular, graphical representations, descriptive measures and also, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis (with multiple comparisons) non-parametric tests.