The impact of managers' experience on the internationalisation process: the case of UK biopharmaceutical SMEs

Companies internationalise as a result of many factors, internal and/or external. The most important internal factor is probably the expertise and the composition of the Top Management Team (TMT), which comprises the executive and the non-executive directors of the firm. Based on the analysis of primary and secondary data, this paper investigates the relationship between the expertise of TMTs in terms of international experience, geographical knowledge and professional competencies, and the evolution of the SMBEs internationalisation process in terms of speed of internationalisation, choice of foreign target markets and implementation of specific market entry strategies. On the other hand, the study aims to evaluate the influence of the company's profile on the level of international experience of the top management team, considering the firm's size, type of activity and stage of development as additional variables.