Mapping opportunity recognition among foreign SMEs in Iran: The case of France, Germany, Chine and Turkey

Investigating entry modes and methods of international companies are among common research topics in international business. However, this issue has been less noticed regarding international companies in Iran. Analyzing international companies' behaviors in Iran become more important mainly after nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers(P5+1) on 14 July 2015. This paper is aiming to do a cross-case analysis on entry modes of small and medium enterprises from four selected countries in Iran. In this regard first, we reviewed the literature and provided a primary framework in the form of 6 questions to map opportunity recognition and entry modes of foreign SMEs. Then, we conducted 44 semi-structured interviews, extracted main themes and constructed a set of tables and figures to compare foreign SMEs and map opportunity profiles divided by countries of origin. With regard to these comparisons and contrasting we found out 6 factors(including. home/host industrial structure, cultural closeness and networking conditions) that had determined different opportunity recognition behaviors among SMEs. Present research could be replicated by future researches for analyzing and developing trade with target countries.