International Collaborations and Opportunities

Findings have shown that CLEAN’s contribution to the specific processes of internationalisation mainly lies within two main categories. The first includes identification of international opportunities and optimising initiating processes and the second revolves around inclusion into relevant networks. These two areas will therefore be addressed separately below.

6.2.1 Optimisation of Initiating Processes and Identification of Opportunities

In the internationalisation process, the lack of resources that many SMEs experience set somewhat natural limitations to international activities. Hence, as market analysis, identification of international opportunities and building relationships with potential partners requires resources, these preparatory processes may cause the international expansion of the firm to abate. In relation to this, a key finding in this thesis is that the three SMEs seek to overcome this challenge by utilising networks to identify opportunities and potential partners abroad. In example, this approach is evident in STAC’s internationalisation strategy, as the firm explicitly utilises its network. However, since not all companies have strong networks, CLEAN can prove useful in assisting the SMEs with expanding their networks and identifying international opportunities. In example CLEAN connects Danish SMEs to foreign private and public actors through delegation trips. This has been seen in the case of ReMoni and VisBlue through their participation in the trips to New York, South Korea and Stockholm. As these trips were arranged and partly financed by CLEAN, they provided the SMEs with the opportunity to meet relevant actors, thus accelerating the individual firm’s preparation phase by decreasing the need for extensive initial market research and minimising the related cost. Furthermore, it has been observed that both STAC and VisBlue have used a network approach to identify opportunities created by formal institutions and thus leverage the regulated environment in the industry to their benefit. While STAC identified such opportunities through the firm’s own network, VisBlue’s leveraged CLEAN’s network by participating in the trip to South Korea which enabled the firm to identify the formal institutional advantage of beneficial legislation for lithium batteries. This further created an opportunity for the company to connect with public and private actors in the market. This demonstrates CLEAN’s ability to support SMEs in identifying international opportunities by sharing knowledge regarding potential regulatory changes providing favourable market opportunities. However, the formal institutional environment is not equally determining for all firms, as some operate in less regulated sub-sectors.

Therefore, identification of such formal institutional advantages varies in relevance, as companies like ReMoni and STAC does not have to make similar considerations in their market selection process given their less regulated technologies.

Alongside CLEAN’s work to help extend the networks of the SMEs, the cluster also provides predefined project opportunities through initiatives like the the C40 City Solutions Platform. This platform creates a bridge between the member SMEs interested in internationalisation and C40 cities looking for solutions to specific sustainability challenges. This creates a direct connection between the solution seekers and the solution providers, eliminating the need for extensive market research the opportunity and market demand has already been identified. Moreover, CLEAN is highly focused on including SMEs in large scale projects such as C40 by facilitating collaboration and consortia

establishment consisting of small and large firms, ultimately integrating the solutions of the different solution providers. This can in turn reduce the associated risk for the individual firm of participating in the project and enable convergence.

However, CLEAN’s contribution to the firms’ internationalisation process lies in the initial stages of the process. The cluster supports the firms in building their individual O advantages, but in order for the contributions to materialise, the firms need to be able to convert the inputs into actual results. Hence CLEAN’s assistance can be considered valuable in the initial phases of identifying opportunities and connecting the right actors, but the firm needs to nurture the relationships and take action based on the presented opportunities.

6.2.2 Access to International Networks

Closely related to the challenges of finding potential partners and expanding networks is the liability of outsidership, which can be a barrier of entry for new firms. Entering a market through a partnership with a local partner can be a way to overcome this liability, as the partner has a direct connection to local networks. All three SMEs have adopted this approach as their foreign partnerships provides inclusion into relevant location specific networks. This benefit is highlighted by VisBlue in particular, as one of the key reasons for the firm’s partnership strategy is to utilise the partner’s market specific knowledge. However, without relevant networks to be able to identify potential partners, entering markets through non-equity based entry modes like partnership strategies can be difficult. Thus, if the firm does not possess the relevant networks to overcome this barrier, CLEAN may be able to facilitate connections to triple helix actors within the market, and thereby positively influence the firm’s chances of overcoming the liability of outsidership. CLEAN’s vast international network, which is extended through the ICN, constitutes an institutional infrastructure for interactions which has the potential to influence the firms’ abilities to build relational assets. However, the ability of CLEAN and ICN to support SMEs in overcoming this barrier naturally depends whether or not their networks extend to the market in question. This somewhat constitutes a limitation to the cluster’s ability to support SMEs. The support in this context thus depends on the nature and location of the opportunity, and may not prove beneficial for all SMEs.

The previous sections have thus addressed the development and augmenting of O advantages as well as the specific processes of leveraging them in an international context. However, a fundamental prerequisite for development and implementation as well as internationalisation efforts is whether the firm has the financial capacity to undergo these processes.