Background: Family Businesses are a large part of the world economy. Most family owned businesses are considered small-medium sized enterprises and therefore, traditionally they operate in their domestic markets. However, due to the ever growing economy the modern family owned businesses have begun to internationalize and generate sales from abroad. Due to these changes in the nature of conducting business of a family firm, certain theories such as the Uppsala internationalization model are becoming obsolete. Hence, new theories have emerged with adjustments to suit the changing attributes such as the Revisited Uppsala model. This paper discusses the aspect and importance of the networks element in the revisited Uppsala model to understand the internationalization process of family firms. 

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the role networks, more specifically social capital, in the internationalization process of small– and medium sized family firms. Increasing globalization of today has shifted the internationalization process from a traditional incremental process towards a dynamic process based on social capital in general and networks in particular. Given the large number of family firms that contribute to the economy and the social capital based internationalization process, this paper has aimed to investigate how Swedish family firms integrate and utilize networks in their internationalization process.

Method: This paper is based upon qualitative research in terms of a single-case study where the family members in control of the firm has been interviewed. The gathered data from the family members of the case study has been analyzed through a combination of the inductive and deductive approaches. This approach has enabled us to use an existing theory through which we have been able to investigate explanatory factors in the internationalization process of the chosen case firm.

Conclusion: We have been able to shed light on the fact that networks in fact play a crucial role in the firm’s process of internationalization. In addition, the research allowed to understand the way in which a family firm utilizes the networks that they might establish with foreign partners in order to gain access to foreign markets. Looking at the established theory such as the ones used for this research, the Uppsala stage model and the revisited Uppsala internationalization model, one can see that the chosen family firm has not strictly employed one particular model.