Canadian SME Internationalization to the UAE: A Case Study Through a Network-based Lens

Canadian small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) can enhance their chances for success through access to potentially lucrative foreign markets and have commonly relied on network ties to facilitate overseas expansion. However, relying heavily on network ties to enter such markets may hinder expansion when geographical distance is great, and boundaries of network connections are reached since information borne out of those networks may lack objectivity and create distorted images of reality, suggesting that network-based explanations are overstated in the existing literature. The role of network ties is salient with immigrant-owned internationalizing SMEs whereby shortfalls in firm resources are offset by network links to host markets. Nevertheless, Canadian SMEs with native-born owners with no inherent ties have succeeded in expanding into such markets. Therefore, how exactly do such SMEs expand into geographically and culturally distant markets without pre-existing network ties? A case study of 6 Canadian SMEs with owners who have either expanded into or plan expansion into the United Arab Emirates, a culturally and geographically distant market, despite possessing no pre-existing ties. Results reveal that these firms have navigated the uncertainties of expanding into distant markets with little or no pre-existing network ties through early-stage network broadening activities and outsourcing networking activities to domestic market experts.