Digital platforms and international performance of Italian SMEs: an exploitation-based overview

Recognising the increasing relevance of digital platforms in socio-economic dynamics, the paper aims at investigating in which ways digital platforms can influence the economic performances of Italian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) actively engaged in foreign countries.

The paper adopts the interpretative lens provided by the exploration–exploitation dichotomy within current studies in knowledge management for defining knowledge-based factors able to influence the economic performance of Italian SMEs in foreign countries. An explorative study on secondary data related to 746 Italian SMEs is conducted for testing via structural equation modelling (SEM) the positive relationships between (1) SME's investment in information and communication technologies (ICT), (2) number of languages available for the SME's website and (3) number of languages available for SME's social pages and SME's return on sales (ROS) in foreign countries.

The results underline the key role of exploitation factors in terms of influence on SME's performance in foreign countries.

The paper enriches current studies about international marketing providing preliminary evidence about the key role of exploitation factors in influencing SME's performance in foreign countries.