Despite the current importance of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and their growing importance to international trade, relatively few studies in the literature have focused on SMEs which have gone beyond exporting nad placed physical facilities in overseas markets. Instead, most studies have focused on large multi-national corporations. Research on understanding the strategic and operational aspects of the globalization process of SMEs is virtually missing in the current literature. This study focuses on the globalization process of U.S. SMEs which have placed facilities in Europe. Using empirical data, this study sheds light on several key issues relevant to SMEs expansion and operation in Europe. Several hypotheses are developed relating to the roles and interactions between a firm's global experience, global operations strategy, information technology capability, and global supply chain strategy. These hypotheses are tested using hte structural equation modelign approach. In addition, these results are compared for smal, medium, and large firms in order to derive an understanding of the progression of these relationships as the firm grows globally. Both, descriptive and confirmatory results are presented, and help to shed considerable light in understanding the comparative dynamics involved in the globalization process of SMEs as well as large firms.
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