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THE IMPORTANCE OF LATIN AMERICAN SPACE IN THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF PORTUGUESE SMEs

PhD student in History at Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa (UAL, Portugal), Master in Development and International Cooperation and Graduated in Management. Member of the Research Center for Historical Sciences (CICH) and the Business History Research Center (CEHE) of the Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa (UAL). Has been linked to Portuguese SMEs and to the internationalization of the Portuguese companies through professional channels and academic research. He managed a project linked to the “Rede PME Inovação” of COTEC Portugal, was present in several business missions through the Association of Portugal-China Young Entrepreneurs, and was a consultant in the agro-industrial sector.

jrsilva@iseg.ulisboa.pt

Full Professor, Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão, Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal). PhD in “Analyse et Politique Économiques” by the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris. Member of the SOCIUS/CSG – Research in Social Sciences and Management, a FCT Center. His research has focused on several topics of international economics and has conducted studies on the global, European, Portuguese and Brazilian economies with an emphasis on the internationalization process of companies and in the development and foundations of economic relations between Portugal and Brazil. Author of numerous publications, including books, book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals, among others, in Tourism Management, Business Process Management Journal, Journal of Business Economics and Management, Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Marine Policy and Technological Forecasting and Social Change.

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Resumo

In the light of the transformation undergone in the last decade by the Portuguese economy, the internationalization of Portuguese companies through exports had a considerable growth, reducing the importance of domestic demand as the main variable in the contribution to GDP, this work addresses the role of SMEs in this process, analyzing the case of their internationalization to the Latin American space. The study is based on an empirical analysis of data resulting from a survey conducted in 2014, period where the transformation became clear, through the responses of 50 internationalized Portuguese SMEs to Latin America, which have been validated. Also, and with a focus on this research, the process was correlated with the relevant theories of internationalization, paving the way for more in-depth and methodologically based studies on this relationship with significant potential, but still little analyzed in the context of the Portuguese economy.

À luz da transformação sofrida na última década pela economia portuguesa, onde a internacionalização das empresas portuguesas através das exportações teve um crescimento considerável, reduzindo a importância da procura interna como a principal variável na contribuição para o PIB, este trabalho aborda o papel das PMEs nesta transformação económica, analisando o caso da sua internacionalização para o espaço latino-americano. O estudo baseia-se numa análise empírica dos dados resultantes de um inquérito realizado em 2014, período em que se começou a tornar clara a evolução referida, tendo sido validadas as respostas de 50 PMEs portuguesas internacionalizadas para a América Latina. Por fim, e com foco nesta investigação, o processo foi correlacionado com as principais teorias de internacionalização, abrindo-se caminho para estudos mais aprofundados e metodologicamente fundamentados sobre esta relação com potencial, mas ainda pouco analisada no âmbito da economia portuguesa.

Palavras-chave

ExportsFDILatin AmericaPortuguese internationalizationSMEs

América LatinaExportaçõesIDEInternacionalização portuguesaPMEs

Como citar este artigo

Brás-dos-Santos, André; Silva, Joaquim Ramos (2020). “The importance of Latin American space in the internationalization of Portuguese SMEs”. JANUS.NET e-journal of International Relations, Vol. 11, N.º 1, May-October 2020. Consulted [online] on the date of the last visit, https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-7251.11.1.6

Article received on 7 August, 2019 and accepted for publication on 10 March, 2020