There was an Academic seminar on Monday 8^th April, 2019 with the topic of "Internationalization, Sustainability and key challenges facing SME’s: A comparative study of UK and China". The lecture was addressed by Professor Phil Harris of Business Research institute, University of Chester.

The program started at 4.00 pm at first lecture hall of conference center where the Dean of School of Management Prof Jianguo Du, welcomed invited guests, students and the speaker for the lecture.

After a brief introduction of the speaker by Professor Jianguo Du, Professor Harris who addressed the lecture, stated the objectives of the research onInternationalization, Sustainability and key challenges facing SME’s.

The objectives were

1. To assess firm’s Internationalization, Sustainability level in the UK and China.

2. To explore key barriers and challenges facing businesses in the UK and China

3. To compare the differences between business in UK and China as well as SME’s and large companies.

The methodology used for the research was large-scale cross national, quantitative survey. A total of 450 UK respondents and 560 Chinese responses were received. A total usable response rate of 63.5% was achieved.

The results of the research indicated that:

1.The Internationalization level of Chinese respondents is higher than UK respondents in all aspects.

2.Chinese businesses were also found to have a higher proportion of overseas sales. 9.9% of Chinese businesses indicated that the proportion of overseas sales was over 50%. This is in comparison with 4.2% of UK Businesses indicating a proportion of overseas sales

3.Over 76.3% of Chinese businesses and only 21.1% of UK Businesses have employees directly involved in international businesses.

4.Chinese companies appeared to be more internationally focused than UK firms in both imports and exports.

The research concluded that the Internationalization level of Chinese businesses are at higher levels than UK businesses in all aspects. Furthermore, Chinese businesses are also more active in importing than UK companies. Finally, while UK companies indicated that "attracting new customers was their biggest challenge, Chinese companies identifies attracting skilled employees" as theirs-indicating skill shortages and potential job opportunities in China.