International business and UK SMEs: rationale, routes, readiness, role of government support, and reflections

International business activity is increasingly prominent, even among the smallest and newest organizations. This paper explores, from the SME perspective, five elements (the 5Rs) associated with their international activity. The characteristics of firms within the diverse SME sector imply that they would have different rationales for entering overseas markets, different views on government support and so on. While firm size does influence decision making in a minority of areas, international intensity (the percentage of exports within total sales) is usually the key factor in understanding the internationalization process. These findings should be valuable to policy makers, practitioners and academics.