Abstract
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) require a combination of organizational and individual skills to grow more rapidly in international markets. The question is whether there is an ideal combination to compete in the present (exploitation orientation) or to prepare to compete in the future (exploration orientation), and whether managerial cognition plays a role on determining international growth. The analysis of Portuguese manufacturing SMEs suggests that the manager's cognitive systems do not have an overall influence on the growth of foreign sales to total sales (FSTS), but the two cognitive systems (experiential and analytic) have a different influence on international exploitation and exploration. International exploration and exploitation mediate the relationship between the latter variables. This study contributes to a better understanding of the role that organizational ambidexterity plays on the SMEs' speed of internationalization and how the manager's cognitive systems influence this organizational orientation.
Highlights
The topic of the speed of internationalization occupies a central position as a measure of the international success of businesses (Acedo & Jones, 2007; Casillas & Acedo, 2013), which is considered the most relevant time-based dimension in the study of the firm’s internationalization (Prashantham & Young, 2011).The literature on the concept and measure of speed of internationalization has become vast and heterogeneous, and it includes various perspectives
The two cognitive systems may complement each other and produce synergistic effects when it comes to international exploitation
Only the analytic cognitive system has a positive effect on international exploration
Summary
The topic of the speed of internationalization occupies a central position as a measure of the international success of businesses (Acedo & Jones, 2007; Casillas & Acedo, 2013), which is considered the most relevant time-based dimension in the study of the firm’s internationalization (Prashantham & Young, 2011).The literature on the concept and measure of speed of internationalization has become vast and heterogeneous, and it includes various perspectives. The topic of the speed of internationalization occupies a central position as a measure of the international success of businesses (Acedo & Jones, 2007; Casillas & Acedo, 2013), which is considered the most relevant time-based dimension in the study of the firm’s internationalization (Prashantham & Young, 2011). Managers should address the following question: how many resources should the firm allocate to exploration and exploitation of international activities? International Business-IB theories characterize the internationalization of firms as the ability to exploit competitive advantages, and the desire to explore resources that strengthen corporate global competitiveness and long-term performance (Hsu et al, 2013). A recent research stream claim that such decisions strongly depend on how managers use their two cognitive systems (Maitland & Sammartino, 2015), namely cognitive system-C (Sys-C, analytical, conscious reasoning) and system-X (Sys-X, intuitive, effortless, automatic and experiential-based reasoning)
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