Abstract
The aim of the current paper is advance a comprehensive framework meant to bridge three major concepts, namely intellectual capital (IC), the internationalization process of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the achievement of sustainable competitive advantage. The paper stresses upon a managerial perspective within the internationalization context, investigating the human, structural and relational capital apposite to managers or entrepreneurs. By directly addressing the relationships among the constructs, the endeavor is complementary to previous systematic reviews on similar topics which tangentially discuss the conceptual triad and thus proposes an integrative research agenda for future interdisciplinary studies straddling the fields of management, business, entrepreneurship and sustainability. In terms of methodology, a systematic literature review was envisaged, by applying a stepwise approach and multifold criteria. Over 100 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed journals were scrutinized and considered in the analysis. The literature review revealed that conceptual papers in the field are scarce despite the variety of their aims and approaches. The quantitative-based empirical studies prevail over the qualitative ones, while mixed methods research designs are scant. In terms of content, the extant studies fall short to advance research and structural models testing and assessing the specific relations among constructs and avail new research avenues focused on the underlying processes of SMEs internationalization by means of intellectual capital harnessing and sustainable competitive advantage achievement.
Highlights
IntroductionThe internationalization process would not be efficient, even possible, without the contribution of intangible assets such as the intellectual capital which is presumed to exert significant effects on the organizational performance and competitiveness in both national and international realms [24,25,26,27,28,29]
The internationalization process would not be efficient, even possible, without the contribution of intangible assets such as the intellectual capital which is presumed to exert significant effects on the organizational performance and competitiveness in both national and international realms [24,25,26,27,28,29]. It is in this particular point that we give credit to the propositions advanced by Cohen and Kaimenakis [30] and Korsakieneet al. [31] when discussing the role of intellectual capital as a driving force of internationalization, via their definition of IC as “the combination of knowledge-bearing intangible resources that the firm has at its disposal whose effective management impact sustainable competitive advantage” (p. 503)
The analysis is twofold in that contributions are systematized in relation to the type of intellectual capital (Table 1) and to the internationalization model/main characteristics (Table 2)
Summary
The internationalization process would not be efficient, even possible, without the contribution of intangible assets such as the intellectual capital which is presumed to exert significant effects on the organizational performance and competitiveness in both national and international realms [24,25,26,27,28,29]. It is in this particular point that we give credit to the propositions advanced by Cohen and Kaimenakis [30] and Korsakieneet al. This perspective is in line with Jaakkola et al [32] and Na et al [33], according to whom the sustainable competitive advantage can be operationalized as the capitalization of the organization’s valuable, rare and irreplaceable resources and capabilities which are prone to reify long-term competitiveness
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