– By examining SMEs’ participation in trade fairs as a way to establish network relationships within a global value chain (GVC), the purpose of this paper is to offer one example of the steps used to reach this goal.
– The study uses a priori deductions derived from prior literature and case analysis of a purposive sample of six New Zealand SMEs to develop propositions on the use of trade fairs to enter a GVC network. The authors use the typology of GVC governance developed by Gereffi et al. (2005) to investigate how the use of trade fairs varies for each governance type.
– The study concludes that international trade fairs offer great network-building possibilities for SMEs, as well as selling, promotion and information gathering benefits. Both theoretical argument and experiential evidence suggest that these benefits are contingent on the GVC’s governance type.
– Although there is extensive work on the importance of networks to SME internationalisation, less has been done on the detailed steps used to build these networks.
