Accelerated internationalization of a SME in the EU

To discover and evaluate the relations between structural and process elements of the internationalization process in a European SME established in 1993, an Austrian family business with 300 employees is used as the case. In-depth knowledge about how resources and capabilities of the firm, qualities of the management, foreign market factors, as well as strategic focus shape the way to the success of the object of study contributes to the theory, not fitting into Born Globals and gradualist models. The research emerged from the cooperation of management consultants with the company immediately in the process of its expansion and aims practitioners as its ultimate users. A literature review, as well as a subsequent exploratory case study, was conducted to determine which elements to focus on in the research method as well as to select appropriate theories and methods. All three sub-cases belong to different foreign market entry modes. The developed qualitative exploratory case study has achieved nuanced and in-depth results of some relationships between successful internationalization of an SME in different market entry modes and internal as well as foreign market factors.