Identifying the Digital Internationalization Pattern of Small and Medium Businesses (Case Study: Pharmaceutical Industry Companies)

These days small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly required to look for growth beyond their national markets, the increasing digitalization of the global economy provides them with ample opportunities for internationalization. Although digitalization is an important factor for internationalization success, there is a lack of empirical evidence on its effect on the internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises. In this study, an attempt has been made to identify the factors affecting the digital internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises and finally present a model for this issue. This approach is qualitative research and data have been collected in the form of semi-structured questions in-depth interviews with managers and experts of companies that operating in international markets in the pharmaceutical industry. Then, data analyzed in three stages: open coding, axial coding and selective coding by Atlas Ti. According to findings, factors affecting the digital internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises, placed in two main categories that these categories are: context factors and structural factors. At the end of the thesis the results of this study and the final model are presented.