The role of diaspora networks in facilitating developed economy SME internationalisation into developing countries: a case study of a UK health firm

This thesis explores the role of diaspora networks in enabling the internationalisation of a UK healthcare industry small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) into developing countries. While internationalisation presents substantial growth opportunities through access to new markets and resources, SMEs often encounter significant challenges arising from liabilities of smallness and foreignness. Although diaspora networks are acknowledged for their capacity to bridge home and host country connections, there is limited research on their role in supporting SMEs from developed countries in navigating operations within developing countries, where diaspora networks maintain strong affiliations.

This study investigates how diaspora networks assist a UK healthcare SME in overcoming exporting challenges during its entry into India, Pakistan, and Nigeria, and their contributions to importing activities. the research addresses the evolution of SME-diaspora relationships, the motivations underlying these interactions, their impact on exporting and importing, and the social outcomes generated.

Employing an embedded single-case study design underpinned by critical realist philosophy, the research uses qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews with 32 participants (SME staff, diaspora members, and international medical graduates), observations, and archival data. Thematic analysis, informed by induction, retroduction, and abduction, uncovers mechanisms driving SME-diaspora collaborations.

The findings demonstrate diaspora networks' hybrid evolution across informal, formal and intermediary roles, representing the first theoretical contribution to network theory. The second contribution reveals SMEs' strategic motivations for diaspora network engagement: accelerating foreign market knowledge acquisition and establishing international credibility and connections. The research demonstrates how diaspora networks mitigate liabilities of foreignness by localising healthcare landscape knowledge and facilitating market opportunity recognition and innovation contextualisation.

The study further extends network theory by illuminating diaspora networks' role in international talent acquisition and revealing mutually beneficial outcomes including enhanced NHS diversity and inclusion, reduced brain drains and expanded healthcare access in developing countries. These network-enabled outcomes generate strategic competitive advantages for the internationalising SME. This research offers practical implications for SME internationalisation strategy while acknowledging the limitations of a single-case study design. Future research opportunities include examining these network dynamics across multiple industries to enhance generalisability.