Chapter 5: The High-Performing SMEs in Traditional Manufacturing Sectors: Innovation and Foreign Operation Modes

The aim of this chapter is to examine the profile of high-performing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Traditional Manufacturing Sectors (TMSs). The authors main contribution is to provide recommendations and benchmarks for prescribing a more robust model of internationalisation in these industries by specifying the types of internationalisation and innovation that better reinforce competitiveness. Our results, based on a sample of 132 SMEs, show that high-performing SMEs make more intense use of advanced operation modes that imply a closer interaction with the host country to access knowledge diversity, skills and work available in those markets. Moreover, compared to low-performing SMEs, and independently of their size and experience, these firms use a wide set of networking and marketing capabilities and develop innovations based on organisational changes that help to create new business models. After a number of years of forced adjustment and adaptation to a globalised context, the new model of high-performing SME in TMS could help to improve the global positioning of these firms in the long term.