This paper investigates how eleven Dutch small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) transnationalised with East and Southeast Asian economies by means of establishing a foreign subsidiary. The study's aim is to elucidate how firms learned to become a transnational corporation and to gauge the relevance of the firm's external networks in the acquisition of the appropriate knowledge. The paper conceptualises SME transnationalisation as an organisational process that can be understood by theories developed in innovation studies. Through qualitative research on transnationalisation pathways, inferences are drawn on the skills and routines that are necessary to bridge institutional differences and the process by which these skills are acquired and routinised within the firm.