This study aimed at identifying the main barriers to SMEs’ internationalisation and assessing the importance, roles and sources of networking to SMEs’ internationalisation. A comprehensive review of the literature revealed that the majority of the studies on networking and SMEs internationalisation have been conducted in developed countries and while in a Small Island Developing State (SIDS) context, no research has been undertaken as at date to investigate the importance, roles and sources of networking to SMEs internationalisation. To achieve the objectives for the study, a questionnaire was administered among 101 owners/managers/directors of SMEs in Mauritius and the data collected were processed using the IBM SPSS Statistics V21.0. According to the findings of the study, informational and political-economic barriers have been identified as the main barriers to SMEs internationalisation in Mauritius. It has also been found that the networking challenges as well as the sources of networking may influence the scope of SMEs’ internationalisation. Based on the findings of the study, recommendations have been proposed to policy makers so that effective policies are formulated to support SMEs’ internationalisation and secondly to entrepreneurs of SMEs who can set in place appropriate strategies and structures to benefit from networking throughout the internationalisation process.
Keywords
Internationalisation,small and medium enterprises,SMEs,Barriers,Networking,Small Island Developing State,Mauritius
