Integration of Intercultural Competence in the Processes of Enterprise Internationalization: Possibilities of the Adaptation of the Model in the Operation of Small and Medium Enterprises

INTEGRATION OF INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE IN THE PROCESSES OF

ENTERPRISE INTERNATIONALIZATION: POSSIBILITIES OF THE ADAPTATION OF

THE MODEL IN THE OPERATION OF SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

Jolita Vveinhardt

Insitute of Sport Science and Innovaions, Lithuanian Sports University Sporto Str. 6, 44221 Kaunas, Lithuania

jolita.vveinhardt@gmail.com

Jūratė Dabravalskytė

S. Daukanto Str. 28, 44246 Kaunas, Lithuania jurate.dabravalskyte@gmail.com

Abstract

The aricle briefly presents the problems idenified during the studies carried out by the authors previously, i.e. the problems of intercultural competence and its integraion in the processes of internaionalizaion are disclosed. On the basis of the researches carried out the model of integraion of intercultural competence in the internaionalizaion processes is adapted, preparing the plan of development of intercultural competence in enterprises. At the end of the aricle the guidelines for the applicaion of the model for development of internaionalizaion of small and medium enterprises is presented.

Keywords:intercultural competence, internaionalizaion, small and medium enterprises

1. INTRODUCTION

Relevance of the research.Business is a very dynamic and acively changing area, requiring the ability to coninually expand the “baggage” of knowledge and experiences. Despite the accumu-lated both theoreical and pracical informaion, the modern management professional must constantly improve this knowledge and update the old knowl-edge, in order to correspond the challenges of mod-ern business and global compeiion. In order to survive enterprises have to expand their business from local to global market. Internaionalizaion is complicated and mulidimensional process, describ-ing the increasdescrib-ing geographical extent of the com-pany and involvement into aciviies of foreign countries (Vabinskaitė, 2009).

intercultural problems (Alimienė & Kuvykaitė, 2004; Manolova, 2004; Knowles, Mughan & Lloyd-Reason, 2006) without any deeper consideraion except that is useful to know the language. But it is necessary to assess the significance of intercultural compe-tence in the management of the processes of inter-naionalizaion of enterprises and to form the model of the management of these processes, which would allow to evaluate intercultural competence of the organizaion, integraing it into the processes of foreign development of the company and idenify the weaknesses of the menioned areas. No less im-portant is the fact that the model of internaional-izaion management should be straighforward, i.e., easily applicable in the aciviies of the company, without substanially changing the established man-agement standards. This is paricularly important for small and medium enterprises, which are limited by the financial resources, limited personnel or insuffi-cient experise and skills (Forsman, Hintu & Kock, 2002) so the companies have to implement the changes independently.

The goal of the research:ater adaptaion of the model of integraion of intercultural compe-tence in the processes of enterprise internaional-izaion, to prepare the plan of development of intercultural competence in enterprises, elaboraing the possibiliies of the adaptaion of the model in the aciviies of small and medium enterprises.

To achieve the goal, the following research ob-jecives are set:

1. To review the topics of intercultural compe-tence and its integraion in the internaionaliza-ion processes.

2. To adapt the model of integraion of intercul-tural competence in internaionalizaion processes.

3. To develop the plan for development of inter-cultural competence in enterprises.

4. To present the guidelines for the use of the model of integraion of intercultural compe-tence in internaionalizaion processes.

Methods of the research.The aricle is based on the analysis and synthesis of scienific literature.

2. THE TOPICS OF INTEGRATION OF

INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE IN

INTERNATIONALIZATION PROCESSES

Nowadays business eniies seeking the devel-opment of business internaionalizaion are con-stantly facing with coninuous and hard to forecast changes of consumer preferences, technology, in-novaions, and other both local and foreign factors in a dynamic and complex global economy. In order to address the problems of the economic growth of the specific country properly, the atenion should be focused on the specific direcions of integrated internaionalizaion of enterprises. The selecion of the ways and methods to solve the problem deter-mines the need to consistently develop the skills re-lated to the assessment and interpretaion of the factors of supply and demand in foreign countries. Therefore, transformaions of business manage-ment and managerial processes are inevitable.

Today’s management theory professionals also draw proper atenion to the competence of execu-ives and/or managers of organizaions and the in-fluence of their decisions on the organizaions. The engine of existence of small and medium enter-prises (hereater – SMEs) and the main developer is the manager. It is known that successful results in business are done by human factor and the higher quality might be achieved by coninuous develop-ment of knowledge and skills (Čiuienė, Meilienė & Šimkūnaitė, 2009). Intercultural competence is one of those competences that are vital for manager and employees in context of internaionalizaion (Khilji, Davis & Cseh, 2010).

posiions of internaionalizaion. Lithuanian entre-preneurs need the theoreical background of inter-naionalizaion adapted at least to the sector of small and medium enterprises, as so far there is the lack of structured informaion both about the mar-kets of various countries, their consumer mentality and cultural norms the business needs to know. Every company should be able to set its own aims, prioriies, to assess the current knowledge, to try to correct any drawbacks and to take advantage of op-portuniies. Oten the execuives/owners of compa-nies themselves underesimate the significance of intercultural competence in internaionalizaion of the company’s aciviies. For that reason the man-ager should have intercultural competence, which helps to recognise where culture is important in business and where not, in order to make right de-cisions (Mead & Andrews, 2009). Basically, intercul-tural competence in broadest sense is understood as “a complex of abiliies needed to perform effec-ively and appropriately when interacing with oth-ers who are linguisically and culturally different from oneself” (Fanini, 2007: 9). However, the ef-forts shown by the vast majority of the respondents who paricipated in the research to deepen the in-tercultural knowledge independently show the need of intercultural competence in execuives’ / managers’ work.

Lithuanian SMEs have plenty of untapped po-tenial, the mere fact that the geographic posiion of the country allows the Lithuanian entrepreneurs to expand their business both to the European countries and to the Russian and Asian markets. All in all, the idea that it is necessary to expand the business to other countries is becoming more pop-ular in Lithuania recently, as the consumer market of the country is too small for the majority of Lithuanian companies. However, normally they hes-itate to undertake a real acivity, as the execu-ives/managers of companies are restrained by the lack of specific knowledge related to a specific mar-ket, difficulies in establishing business contacts abroad, the lack of networking skills, etc. All of this would contribute to a much easier and faster devel-opment of business in a foreign country. It is obvious that the business needs structured, integrated the-oreical knowledge of intercultural competence and the models of applicaion – this informaion would

become the reliable and firm staring point in inter-naionalizaion of aciviies of the companies.

Usually in literature SME internaionalizaion has been approached through a variety of theories and models. As Purhonen (2008) states, one con-necing theme for the central theories of SME inter-naionalizaion is the importance of networks. Uppsala (Johanson & Vahlne, 2009) is one of the most popular model of internaionalizaion, which also emphasises the relaionship between organiza-ions (in other words – networks). The different models of the internaionalizaion of enterprises analysed by the authors are seen as universal (Vveinhardt & Dabravalskytė, 2014: 22), but it is quite difficult to create such structures because of many different factors – every country and its busi-nesses operate under certain circumstances, which influence their decisions and principles of acivity. Worth atenion is that the Lithuanian business or-ganizaions are oten affected by the factors charac-terisic of Lithuania, therefore, the processes of internaionalizaion are unique in some sense. Tak-ing into account the proposed assumpions, and based on the results of the researches carried out, the hypotheical model of management of interna-ionalizaion by integraing intercultural compe-tence in Lithuanian companies was adapted.

3. THE MODEL OF INTEGRATION OF

INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE IN THE

PROCESSES OF INTERNATIONALIZATION

to learning of languages and communicaion (Harz-ing, Koster & Magner, 2011). For this reason, the models, in which the intercultural competence would receive more importance, aren’t formed yet, there is also a lack of methodological tools on how to properly evaluate the significance of this compo-nent for business organizaions. Thus, the model adapted by the authors and the pracice of improve-ment of intercultural competence formed in accor-dance with it is one of the first efforts in order to update the management of intercultural compe-tence and its integraion with other business processes. This model should be seen as a mean / programme for the improvement of internaional-izaion processes of SMEs through the integraion of intercultural competence and development of the capacity of the later.

The basis of the model is Q. Rizvi’s (2010) sys-tem of internaional business, which is based on the author’s own experience as a business consultant. Nevertheless, it should be noted that business is a very dynamic area, so opimizaion of the processes should be as simple as possible to adapt them quickly, especially when new opportuniies to move aciviies of the organizaion to a qualitaively higher level occur quite suddenly. It is because of its com-plexity and the very high level of detail, Q. Rizvi model should be considered the opposite to the Up-psala model (Johanson & Vahlne, 2009). Despite the fact, that Uppsala model is considered as classics on internaionalizaion issue, but the scholars (Hajela & Akbar, 2013) are criicizing it for the uncertainty, it does not provide the plan of aciviies/steps, which enterprise should do in order to expand their business. In other words, both models are more ex-treme, especially when it comes to companies of the SME sector – the later do not have sufficient analyical and financial resources that would allow to provide for and/or form the direcions of acivi-ies of the organizaion, oten even strategic ones. In addiion, it should be noted that Q. Rizvi, organ-ising consultaions for businesses on the issues of internaional business development, and on the basis of the iSMARTE model, always appoints to the company the coach, who joins the team of the com-pany for a limited period to convey informaion re-lated to the applicaion of the model to the company and its managers properly and to help

suc-cessfully overcome all the steps of management of internaionalizaion provided in the model.

In the case of this research the model of Q. Rizvi was simplified, leaving only the most important items – conceptualisaion, market analysis, strategic plan-ning, and commercialisaion that ensure the success-ful internaionalizaion of the company, leaving the right to autonomy to the company. Implementaion of the model does not require including an external specialist into the company aciviies (i.e., the com-panies avoid to pass the know-howand other infor-maion about commercial aciviies to the individuals who are not related to the company). The compo-nent of management of intercultural competence has been added to the model. While intercultural competence is an important factor, which can sim-plify and accelerate the processes of internaional-izaion, in many cases this factor does not receive proper atenion. And this leads to the fact that a number of companies are forced to limit their aciv-iies by culturally related markets, because they do not have interculturally competent managers. Typical components of the management processes have not been modified, therefore, the steps of each element remained the same, except for the management of intercultural competence, and the steps detailed at the stage of evaluaion (though basically the stage has not been qualitaively developed, as quite a log-ical in the business sense structure was formed in the original model). However, it should be noted that Q. Rizvi, modelling his system, put a paricular emphasis on highlighing the knowledge accumulated in the company: a successful company, regardless of whether or not it is internaionalized, accumulates its know-howover ime, as it is the main tool of the compeiiveness of the company (Rizvi, 2010). Thus, it is necessary to maintain it so that the company would be able to compete in the market, therefore, it is important to ensure that the company’s know-how would not be changed or would be changed slightly, but the organizaion itself would remain flex-ible and capable of adaping to the market and the needs of its users, i.e., to the business environment of the specific market. In other words, the enterprise must discover the ways to implement internaional-izaion without losing compeiiveness.

man-agement of processes into one system, however, in the case of this study they are separated. The main argument for this decision is that managerial deci-sions help to develop the purposeful strategy for the company, to plan the measures for the implementa-ion of this strategy, and intercultural competence, which is closely related to the communicaion and cultural knowledge, determines how these proces -ses will be implemented and whether they will be implemented at all. The adapted model is presented in Figure 1.

As it is shown in Figure 1, the model consists of five stages, which a company must go through aim-ing at concentrated internaionalizaion. These stages are usually thought over and implemented at the beginning of aciviies of the company, focusing on the consumers and specific characterisics of the naional market. However, the atenion is drawn to the fact that the foreign market is strange and mostly unfamiliar neither to the head of the com-pany, nor to any specialist of the company as the one in which the company grew up. Therefore,

Source: adapted by the authors, based on Rizvi (2010) and Marcel (2011)

these aspects must be considered in relaion to the culture, norms, market situaion, consumer prefer-ences, tradiions, and even in specific legal or reli-gious regulaions, etc. of a foreign country. It is because of a lack of cultural knowledge and the re-sultant lack of knowledge of the market of the coun-try and possible restricions on the aciviies, the block of intercultural competence is necessary in this model, since it allows to evaluate the situaion on the market in advance, anicipate difficulies aris-ing, and plan potenial scenarios of their soluion. Another important component is business environ-ment: the enterprise planning its internaionaliza-ion must adjust all acinternaionaliza-ions to the specific business environment, as only by being flexible the company will be able to internaionalize successfully.

The most important part of this model is the cyclicity and the constant adaptaion of the organi-zaion. As business changes by leaps and bounds, enterprises will never be able to create universal methods of implementaion of the internaionaliza-ion, and in paricular the SME sector is restricted by limited resources. Therefore, in order to achieve opimum results, the companies should concentrate only on a very limited and well-balanced number of markets simultaneously, (ideally, only one, but at this point, the organizaions may encounter in-creased ime costs and the slow return on invest-ment, as well as higher risk, because there are no diversificaion opportuniies, as well as with higher alternaive costs). In other words, the company fo-cuses solely on one foreign market, comprehends it, adapts, and then moves to the next, repeaing the same steps of the model, this ime focussing on the business environment of the new market. How-ever, it should be noted that, although the principle of internaionalizaion is more purposeful, at the same ime it causes some difficulies: in order to be able to manage the business processes on a new market properly, the company needs interculturally educated and competent management profession-als, because one of the top ranked problem for in-ternaionalizaion is the lack of managerial and other markets’ knowledge (OECD, 2009).

The company that has progressed through all the steps of the five stages, presented in the model, forms the basis for the aciviies (business environ-ment), which allows to step into the selected foreign

market safely and to prepare for future compeiion with business eniies operaing in that market. In addiion, the model is based on learning by doing principle of educaion, so the company (more specifically, its execuives and/or managers) accu-mulates the knowledge of the new market, stores and uses it to make specific decisions at the same ime. The company is therefore much easier to re-spond to the emerging challenges of operaing abroad, to maintain compeiiveness and adapt the know-how of the company more expediiously. Of course, it is ime-consuming way, because of using external consultants only, the internaionalizaion can be fast but expensive (Petersen, Pedersen & Sharma, 2003). It should be emphasized that the ap-plicaion of the discussed model is becoming easier with every new market, i.e., the more acively the company develops internaionalizaion, the easier the later is. Especially, if the organizaion is making considerable efforts to develop intercultural com-petence of the employees, especially managers of the company, which corresponds to the third stage in the model.

4. THE PLAN OF DEVELOPMENT OF

INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE IN

ENTERPRISES

The phase of intercultural competence in the model consists of two main parts.

charac-ter traits, moivaion of the person promising to de-velop internaionalisaion directly, his/her knowl-edge and experience background, generally speaking about the business, its principles of aciv-ity. First and foremost, these aspects allow evaluat-ing the exisevaluat-ing employee’s competencies; the wider they are, the easier it will be to develop intercultural competence and improve other competencies. It is also necessary to self-evaluate to what part of the company’s employees and at what level the inter-cultural competence is the most important. Perhaps not only managers and execuives, but also lower-level employees face intercultural communicaion, for example, when implemening the tasks dele-gated by foreign partners, etc. We are all members of a certain culture, but we are oten so used to it that we do not feel where the cultural things are, simply because we take them for granted and un-deresimate the fact that certain components of our behaviour or decisions are the influence of our cul-ture (Pruskus, 2010). Such analysis helps to reveal the cultural dimensions, which are usually over-looked, thus helping to discover opportuniies for improvement.

Secondly, when including intercultural compe-tence in the process of internaionalizaion, it is very important to prepare the plan of development of in-tercultural competence, which consists of 4 steps (based on Marcel, 2011): to segment audiences and set the desired behavioural results; to set prioriies to the development of intercultural competence that are based on the business case of the organi-zaion; to define the requirements and the content of intercultural competence development pro-grammes; to develop the plan including less signifi-cant prioriies, in order to ensure that they will not be let out of consideraion.

To segment audiences and set the desired be-havioural resultsmeans that for every new foreign market certain cultural and at the same ime busi-ness characterisics can be disinguished. It can be tried to segment several culturally and geographi-cally close countries, thus atribuing typical busi-ness models to them. Judging by the norms of behaviour established in certain cultures, one can start looking for soluions on how to change one’s behaviour as a leader/manager to be able to reach the aims set by the company.

To set prioriies to the development of intercul-tural competence, which are based on the business case of the organizaion. The company disinguish-ing the priority areas of development of intercul-tural competence will reach the desired results much faster at lower costs. The company may dis-tribute prioriies in different ways – for some com-panies it will be important first to train employees in accordance with their posiion in the company, for other companies training only in certain compe-tencies is important, for example, to communicate with the rapidly developing South American coun-tries the execuive must first learn their language, Spanish or Portuguese, as definitely not all of them are likely to communicate only in the English lan-guage, which is considered to be almost interna-ional.

To define the requirements and the content of intercultural competence development pro-grammes. Ater seing the prioriies, it is ime to think about what outcome of educaion is expected and to look for measures to achieve the expected results. Such quesions as: “should the programs for the employees be developed on the individual basis (as the level of intercultural competence may vary)”, “how to moivate employees to educate them-selves”, “what should be the complexity of the pro-gramme designed”, “what are the means to develop the intercultural competence”.

To develop the plan including less significant prioriies, in order to ensure that they will not be let out of consideraion. In this step, the involvement of new employees in the processes of development of intercultural competence and internaionalizaion should be reviewed, as well as how oten the pro-grammes of development of intercultural compe-tence should be updated; perhaps it is possible to include training in intercultural competence with the already ongoing trainings of human resource competencies.

of intercultural competence in organizaional processes, one should try to see the whole, without going to the limit: not to be restricted only by the qualitaive improvement of intercultural compe-tence of employees, forgeing the other vital processes necessary for the company, or to pay at-tenion only to the company’s financial resources. It should also be understood that the changes of in-tercultural competence, as well as any other changes in the organizaion do not happen in a mo-ment, it is necessary to plan for long-term perspec-ive, instead of the short “stops” in the company’s aciviies when developing intercultural compe-tence.

As to the company that does not have the knowledge of intercultural competence it is oten difficult to orient what to start from, in order to change the situaion, simplified soluions of possible plan for development of intercultural competence which the company can follow when designing its curriculum of development of intercultural compe-tence are presented in Figure 2.

As a rule, the development of intercultural competence in the company depends on financial potenial of the company. As the Figure 2 shows,

firstly the company or its execuive/owner should decide whether the company itself will invest in the development of competencies of employees or the employees will have to do it. By the way, it should be noted that when the later opion has been cho-sen, the head of the company should create a good moivaion system so that this decision would an-swer its purpose in the later aciviies of the com-pany (V. Pruskus, personal communicaion, April 4, 2014). The company that has decided to take re-sponsibility for the development of intercultural competence of the employees has two choices. If the company has sufficient financial resources, the easiest way requiring least effort is to order the courses provided by external professional consult-ants. They will assess the intercultural competence of the employees of the company, but the company itself should clearly specify certain areas necessary for the organizaion in the processes of internaion-alizaion. The most difficult task when trying to cre-ate a plan for development of intercultural competence by themselves is to choose an accept-able model of educaion. The authors offer Dear-dorff’s (2008) intercultural competence learning spiral as one of the most acceptable models of in-tercultural educaion. This model involves the

cept of lifelong learning and the most important areas of development of intercultural competence. However, the proposed model is not the only one, and the company can choose another model they consider the most appropriate in view of its subjec-ive situaion.

The company, which has decided which model of development of intercultural competence to apply, should move on the choice of specific tech-niques. For example, if a low level of foreign lan-guage competence is observed in the company, foreign language training courses should be organ-ised. The role-play games, as well as case studies, which enable to provide for potenial standard so-luions of problems, help in the development of in-tercultural knowledge and skills most. Some preparatory work is possible, i.e., when the execu-ive, knowing which employee will have a business trip or an important meeing with foreigners, sets him certain related tasks in advance. Generally, in the cases when the company is the iniiator of train-ing, much greater involvement in the processes of intercultural competence training prevails in the or-ganizaion.

As it has already been menioned, another pos-sibility of development of intercultural competence is to moivate the employee to develop intercultural competence independently. It oten happens that such an employee acquires intercultural skills on the job, i.e. through pracice. But, definitely, he can also extend and deepen his knowledge, such as foreign language learning, acquiring cultural knowledge of certain countries. Cultural tourism during holidays is also a great opportunity to improve both intercul-tural knowledge about the specific culture and in-tercultural skills.

It should be noted that the curriculum of inter-cultural competence is also a form of company com-municaion, useful both for internal and external communicaion, paricularly in cases where a wider integraion with the public or the improvement the company’s image/opinion of clients, employees and/or partners is aimed at. In this case, company execuives have to disinguish the objecives of communicaion, which would also help to follow the purposefully developed plan, and the selected di-recion of internaionalizaion of the company.

Therefore, the company must be able to answer the following quesions concentrically: what goals or business opportuniies foster the company to de-velop intercultural competence – financial, strategic organizaional, etc.? Why does the company provide financial and ime resources, developing intercul-tural competence? What does the company (in the case of SMEs – the manager) consider the priority in improving cultural awareness – the differences between business units/divisions, geographical dif-ferences, the differences between the employees of various levels and responsibility? Ater preparing the plan and having clear, unambiguous answers to the strategic quesions submited, the company will be ready to take pracical steps, going to the foreign market, i.e., a detailed analysis of the market and commercializaion.

It should be noted that the model is adapted only on the basis of the results of researches con-ducted by the authors, so it is the first atempt to update intercultural competence as an important and useful tool for internaionalizaion of business. However, in order to verify the effeciveness of all the steps in the model, the broader research and detailed analysis of its pracical applicaion in the processes of internaionalizaion of companies inte-graing intercultural competence are also necessary.

5. APPLICATION OF THE MODEL OF

INTEGRATION OF INTERCULTURAL

COMPETENCE IN THE

INTERNATIONALIZATION PROCESSES

is difficult to say how long the implementaion of the stages of the model would take, as every com-pany is different, therefore, it should be stressed that the pracical implementaion of the model de-pends on many factors, such as the level of employ-ees’ experise, moivaion, the size of the organizaion, its exising resources, etc. Figure 3 presents the algorithm of applicaion of the model of integraion of intercultural competence and in-ternaionalizaion.

would take at least several decades. Thus, the en-terprises should follow the plan:

• Ater choosing to internaionalize the aciviies of the company, the exising knowledge of business processes in the local market should be system-aized;

• To disinguish the intended model of performance in foreign countries using the model of integraion of intercultural competence and internaionaliza-ion;

• This step consists of the successful or unsuccess-ful use of the model of intercultural competence and internaionalizaion in the aciviies of the company;

• Ater going through all the steps of the model and successful establishment in the overseas market, it is possible to think about another similar or completely opposite foreign market. If the enter-prise chooses the completely opposite foreign market, it is necessary to reconsider the steps of the model of internaionalizaion, taking into ac-count the aspects of the prospecive foreign mar-ket, if it selects a similar one, it should re-think and improve the steps taken before, paying aten-ion to the unknown and different things; • However, if not everything has been implemented

and not all was as successful as it had been ex-pected in the course of the steps of the interna-ionalizaion stages, it is necessary to go back to the steps of the model and re-think the unsuc-cessful areas, and make correcions.

Thus, both the development of intercultural competence and the processes of enterprise inter-naionalizaion are not exhausive, as the constantly changing business environment makes it necessary to be always ready for new challenges. Therefore, the company must constantly look for soluions on how to survive in the global business world and con-quer new markets, using intercultural knowledge. The model presented in this aricle is likely to help small and medium enterprises to expand their busi-ness in foreign markets, and it will draw the re-searchers’ atenion to the deeper exploraion of the interacions of intercultural competence and in-ternaionalizaion. And this synergy between sci-ence and business will contribute to the economic growth of the country.

Figure 3: Algorithm of applicaion of the model of integraion of intercultural competence and

internaionalizaion

6. CONCLUSIONS

This is one of the first atempts to actualize the intercultural competence as an important and use-ful tool in pracical terms the internaionalizaion of the business in Lithuania, because the model itself includes not only the classic elements of the inter-naionalizaion of the business, but also include the intercultural competence as one of the most impor-tant elements of internaionalizaion, which gives the company a significant compeiive advantage. Authors assume, that this model could be successful used in other countries, which has something in common, like small inner market or are post soviet country. All post soviet countries has the same ex-perience and knowledge about culture of Russia and other Asian countries.

Aiming at more precise adaptaion of the model for small and medium enterprises of Lithua-nia, more extensive research should be carried out, elaboraing the spheres of acivity of the enterprises (producion, trade, services, etc.), that would influ-ence the components of the model. The specifics of the processes of internaionalizaion should also be noted: the companies in this study were not classi-fied under internaionalisaion aciviies (export, subsidiaries, franchises, etc.), but it is likely that this may slightly correct the model, as the different forms of internaionalizaion may require a different level of involvement of intercultural competence. But all of the menioned hypotheses should be ap-proved / rejected by further research.

EXTENDED SUMMARY / IZVLEČEK

Hiter razvoj globalizacije sili podjetnike v spremembo njihovega načina poslovanja. Lokalni trg je ponavadi premajhen za preživetje in razvoj podjeij, zato morajo svoje poslovanje internacional-izirai. Majhna in srednje velika podjetja imajo omejene finančne, kadrovske in druge vire, poleg tega pa jim manjka tudi znanje o tem, kako internacionalizirai poslovanje. V prispevku je predstavljena prilagoditev integriranega hipoteičnega modela medkulturnih kompetenc in internacionalizacije, ki predstavlja vidik medkulturne kompetence kot pomembnega in koristnega prakičnega orodja za in-ternacionalizacijo poslovanja. Čeprav je ta model prilagojen litovskemu poslovnemu okolju, avtorji predpostavljajo, da bi ga lahko uspešno uporabljali tudi v drugih državah, posebej v državah z majh-nim notranjim trgom ali pa v državah nekdanje Sovjetske zveze. Predvsem slednje imajo podobne izkušnje in znanje o kulturi v Rusiji in drugih azijskih državah.

Za natančnejšo prilagoditev modela za majhna in srednje velika podjetja, bi bilo potrebno izvesi obsežnejše raziskave in preučii podjetja iz različnih dejavnosi (proizvodnja, trgovina, storitve, itd.), kar bi lahko imelo vpliv na posamezne sestavine modela. Podjetja v tej študiji tudi niso bila razvrščena po dejavnosih v procesu internacionalizacije (izvoz, ustanavljanje hčerinskih družb, franšize, ipd.), kar bi verjetno vplivalo na sestavo modela, saj lahko različne oblike internacionalizacije zahtevajo različno stopnjo vključevanja medkulturnih kompetenc. Članek torej na kratko predstavi in analizira vse te probleme medkulturnih kompetenc in njihovo vključevanje v procese internacionalizacije, zlasi za majhna in srednje velika podjetja.

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