“We lean on each other”: trust and cooperation in SME internationalisation in Ghana

This study aims at exploring and understanding the processes, practices and implications for the development of trust and its role in SME internationalisation in Ghana. Small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) are a major source of exports and economic growth. However, SMEs from developing countries encounter disproportionate barriers in an attempt to achieve the minimum levels of resources, capabilities and experience needed for internationalisation. An option is to embark on networking in order to obtain the resources, capacity and experience (Schmitz, 1995, Child and Rodrigues, 2012) needed to access international markets. Trust has been found to be a defining factor in building up such networks and relationships for internationalisation. However, the role of trust in the context of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) internationalisation is a recent phenomenon of academic inquiry that has not been widely studied particularly in the context of developing countries. Hence, this study aims to fill this knowledge gap. This study uses a case study of 16 SMEs to examine this subject in detail. Through face-to-face unstructured interviews this in-depth study enhanced the investigations of interpretations and meanings of owners/manager’s perceptions on trust building and networking. Thematic analysis was used to organise the data and to gain insights into meanings of SME owners/managers. The findings show that entrepreneurs had drawn on traditional cultural institutions such as chieftaincy, religion and family/kinship combined with forms of corporations and cooperatives. The findings particularly show that culture is an important factor in trust building. This study offer insights into how facilitates SMEs’ access to international markets. It also emphasises the need for entrepreneurs to understand the basis of trust building in different cultural contexts as the nature of trust across cultural boundaries may differ.