Working Together Locally-Performing Better Internationally: Alliance-FSAs-SME Internationalisation

The present study directs towards investigating the impact of local alliance on global performance of SMEs. In order to explore such impact, a conceptual three stage model has been developed covering three main variables: strategic alliance, developing firm specific advantages (FSAs), and internationalisation. Qualitative and explorative descriptive studies on fifty SMEs of Khulna city, Bangladesh were carried out to detect the key underlying variables exist in the context. From the data recorded and archived a total of ten variables covering various types of strategic alliances were developed, in the next stage a total of 20 FSAs were identified which can be obtained through such alliances and in final stage again ten variables were detected that describe different internationalisation competencies which can be developed through building those FSAs. This study contributed toward developing a model for successful alliance-FSAs-internationalisation framework from the observations of the respondents firms.