Explosive international growth and problems of success amongst small to medium-sized firms

This article uses the business network perspective to identify how small to medium-sized manufacturing firms in a small isolated economy such as New Zealand deal with the issues of success and rapid growth as a result of their internationalization efforts. It focuses on three key questions. What are the relationships between rapid international growth and business networks? Are networks an important facilitator and/or inhibitor? How exactly do networks contribute to success? This study uses historiographic case method to gather data. The results from Phase I of the study highlight an interesting phenomenon - that the speed of international success can be a destabilizing factor. Phase II of the study shows that business networks offer the only vehicle for internationalization when the internationalization process is sudden (the gusher), involves big increases in capability (going global), and involves specialization (focus and grow). All three conditions characterize internationalization out of a small domestic market.