How a Technology-based SME Internationalizes via Network Embeddedness: The Case Study of a Future Mobility Firm, ACEWORKS

Technology-based SMEs can attain international influence without establishing foreign affiliates or exporting directly by becoming embedded in a lead customer’s global value chain. Yet internationalization research still privileges firm-centric indicators such as foreign sales shares and owned overseas presence, which can understate network-mediated trajectories. This study examines ACEWORKS, a Korean future mobility testing SME, through a longitudinal single case design that combines two semi-structured CEO interviews with triangulated documentary sources. The analysis introduces network-embedded indirect internationalization, defined as a mode in which an SME becomes deeply embedded, relationally and functionally, within a lead customer’s global value chain while cross-border sales and logistics are booked primarily under the customer’s name rather than through the SME’s own exporting or foreign affiliates. Evidence reveals a four-stage process: the firm (1) secures network insidership with an anchor customer, (2) connects the customer to specialized overseas partners through brokerage and orchestration, (3) becomes functionally embedded in the customer’s global workflows, and (4) generates network outcomes such as expanded participation in global R&D tasks, accelerated opportunity emergence, and reputational spillovers despite limited foreign sales. Beyond delineating this mechanism, the study proposes illustrative network outcome indicators and identifies enabling firm-level capabilities that sustain role expansion in customer-led global production systems. The study’s central contribution is a process-based, network-centric account that bridges international business and global value chain perspectives by specifying how domestic SMEs can internationalize through role-based participation and multi-party coordination, even when conventional internationalization metrics remain muted. Implications are discussed for SMEs and lead firms operating in B2B technology sectors where complex interfaces require intensive coordination.