The Internationalization of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: A Policy Perspective

Small and medium sized firms play an important role in the process of creative destruction. The focus of the paper is on the international diffusion of small and medium sized firms innovations. Small and medium sized firms face two challenges in globalization: property rights protection and barriers to entry. We suggest that these barriers can frequently be circumvented by using existing multinationals as international conduits for small and medium size firms' innovations. However, such intermediated modes of expansion is adversely affected by transaction difficulties and intermediator's rent extraction. We raise two categories of questions: (i) is the private sector systematically making the wrong choice between the direct and intermediated mode of international expansion? and (ii) What should be the policy guidelines to improve the overall rate of international diffusion of innovation by small and medium sized enterprises.