Levels of Social Capital in Internationalization: A View on Smaller Firms and Entrepreneurs

This contribution introduces the notion of social capital and discusses integration into the studies on internationalization of smaller firms and entrepreneurs. Integrating social capital into the resource based perspective, we categorize social capital at three levels: firstly, social capital can be attributed to individuals, affecting their relationship with the external environment. Secondly, social capital is an inherent property of networks, into which smaller firms and entrepreneurs are embedded. Thirdly, social capital exists at the macro level, where its characteristics and availability varies between environments and nations. This contribution attemps to fascilitate the operationalization of social capital for an improved understanding of processes of internationalization of smaller firms and entrepreneurs.