Internationalization of Turkish SMEs: An Empirical Study

More than 99% of enterprises in Turkey are SMEs (Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises). Turkish SMEs try to expand into foreign markets. They want to increase their competitive advantages both in domestic and foreign markets. The purpose of this paper is to determine internationalization process and international processes of Turkish SMEs. The study was conducted on 267 SMEs in Istanbul in Turkey. Frequency distibution analyses and Chi-square analyses were applied to the data. It is found out that Turkish SMEs internationalize gradually as it was explained in Uppsala Theory. Most of them focus on exporting.