Turning Social Capital into Business?

The effects of using personal networks have in recent years become a topic of interest in the research area that focuses on the internationalization process of the firm. Few studies have, however, used the concept of social capital when studying the internationalization process of high-tech SMEs. In this explorative case study, ten Swedish SMEs in the biotech business have been examined in order to see how they use social capital for accessing the critical resources that they need in their internationalization process. The results of the study indicate that the usefulness of social capital changes during this process and that the wrong perception of social capital’s usefulness can lead to unsuccessful internationalization.