Italian Small and Medium enterprises in China. Relationships and cultural distances throughout the supply chain

The aims of the paper are: • To describe how Italian SMEs approach the Chinese market • To understand how Italian SMEs have changed their business model to face the Chinese challenge • To analyze how they collaborate with different business partners along the supply chain. This work presents empirical evidences related to 8 case studies belonging to a sample of 126 Italian SMEs operating in China. This research is part of a wider project that is financed by the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific Research (Prin 2007), and is based on the analysis of “Business models and market strategies for Italian SMEs to enter the Chinese market”. The methodology is organized in two steps: a quantitative research to gather general information on strategies and tactics that are adopted by Italian SMEs on the Chinese market, and a qualitative research to deepen the most significant managerial and marketing issues to succeed in China (strategies, co-operation, competences), by finding out best practices.