O processo de internacionalização

: o caso Silampos

Abstract

The main goal of this thesis is to study the internationalization process of a Portuguese company, trying to understand the key motivations for that process, and how the process has developed during the years. In order to perform this study we explored, as a casestudy, Silampos, a company we have considered representative of a large group of Portuguese medium-sized companies. Since the beginning of operations the company, that produces metallic tableware, has spent almost twenty years developing their activity in Portugal. They became the uncontested leader of the Portuguese market and a really well-known brand for Portuguese people. Afterwards, Silampos took a decisive step in their growth, when they started selling for the international markets. For this analysis, we decided to study Silampos’ internationalization process through three main theories often used to explain this kind of behavior: the OLI model, the Uppsala Model and the international networks model. All these models, for different reasons, seemed to be able to explain the successful experience of Silampos. However, from our analysis, we could conclude that the international network model provides the most satisfactory explanation, due to the importance of the network of connections. Besides, the research has also shown that the network of connections can be useful to other companies, similar to Silampos in size and resources, as it seems a natural path for companies wanting to start or develop their international activities.

Date of Award	2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa