Effects of global networks and the foreign migrant workforce on Thai SMEs' satisfaction with their export performance: the mediating role of international knowledge

Abstract

This research investigates the interconnections of global networks, the sharing of the foreign migrant workforce and the international knowledge of the entrepreneurs' satisfaction with the export performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The results of our partial least squares analysis using a sample of 170 Thai entrepreneurial SMEs provide significant evidence that the degree of international knowledge is significantly higher in those SMEs that strongly emphasised establishing and maintaining networks with people in foreign markets, as well as in those SMEs that employed a higher share of the foreign migrant workforce. The entrepreneurial SMEs that possessed a higher degree of international knowledge and employed a higher share of the foreign migrant workforce tended to exhibit a greater satisfaction about their export performance.