**1. Introduction**

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have always been the backbone of the Italian economic and entrepreneurial system: they play a decisive role in terms of contribution to GDP formation, employment, and value added [1, 2].

The globalization process that has been underway for some decades, together with the digital revolution of recent years, has pushed many small businesses to accept the challenge of internationalization driven by the search of opportunities for affirmation and growth. The analysis of this phenomenon must start from a definition of the

concept of internationalization. In order to underline the complexity of the theme and its evolution over time, it is possible to refer to the following quotes: Johanson and Vahlne define internationalization "as a process in wich a firms steps up in incremental stages its involvement in international operations" [3], while Calof and Beamish consider internationalization "as the process of adapting a firm's operations (strategy, structure, resource, etc.) to international environments" [4].

Data on the European economic system show that, although small enterprises represent on average more than 95% of the total number of enterprises, their contribution to import-export activities is significantly lower than the one offered by large enterprises and varies between 20% and 40%. There is, undoubtedly, a greater propensity for large companies to internationalize, considering that, on average, 90% of large companies export their products, while only a small share of SMEs (between 10% and 25%) sell across borders [5]. The Italian situation appears more favorable than that of other European countries: it is characterized by a significant contribution of small enterprises to international trade (exceeding in a few years the value of import-export achieved by large enterprises) and by a steady growth in the number of companies choosing to internationalize [6].

The European Union (EU) also recognizes the strategic importance of the internationalization process for the development of SMEs and tends to promote this process through various economic policy instruments, such as the Communications "Small Business, Big Word" [7], or "Trade, Growth and World Affaires. Trade policy as a core component of the EU's 2020 strategy" [8].

Despite the obvious advantages of import-export activities in terms of turnover growth and consolidation of international competitive position, the choice to operate outside the national borders involves some difficulties. The high costs of managing orders, the complexity of bureaucratic procedures, and the need for qualified personnel are some of the problems that small businesses have to face in order to undertake an internationalization process. It is also important to underline the presence of financial constraints to which SMEs are traditionally subject, such as equity gap, information opacity, excessive debt weight in the financial structure [9]: about financial aspect, internationalized companies must also deal with the lack of working capital to support the necessary investments in global markets and to finance exports. These issues can discourage small business and slow down their internationalization process.

In this perspective, the present research work aims to analyze the financial and economic situation of small Italian exporting companies in the period between 2011 and 2020 selected from the AIDA database. The results obtained by applying some indicators to the reclassified financial statements of small exporting companies were then compared with the values obtained by applying the same indicators to all small Italian companies, selected from the same database. The objective is to verify the health of small exporting enterprises, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, as well as to compare it with the situation of non-exporting ones, assessing the nature and extent of any differences in performance levels.

The research work is organized as follows. Paragraph 2 offers a review of the literature on the opportunities and limitations associated with a choice of internationalization of SMEs. The third paragraph defines the research methodology and exposes the results obtained, while the subsequent section proposes a reasoned discussion on the causes and dynamics that led to the formation of the same results. The last section contains the conclusions and outlines issues for further discussion.
