With China’s deeper and wider integration into the world economy, Chinese small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have to face the global not just domestic competition. In 2016, the turnover of foreign trade of SMEs occupied over 60% of the China’s total volume of imports and exports. Thus, it is important to find out how SMEs may enhance their competitiveness in the world market especially how they can internationalise in their early entry stage. Two internationalisation models have been widely used by those firms engaging in international business, which are traditional stage model and born global model. The traditional stage mode considers internationalisation as a gradual process. In contrast, firms adopting born global mode are the small, technology-oriented companies that operate in international markets from the earliest days of their establishment. They are business organisation that, from inception, seeking to derive significant competitive advantage from the use of resources and the sale of outputs in multiple countries. Unlike traditional stage model, internal factors as entrepreneurship, innovation and network play more important roles in firm’s internationalisation process. In many developed countries, born global model is a better strategic choice for SMEs, which pursue international development nowadays. This research conducts a series of quantitative analyses. First, a unique panel dataset: China Industry Business Performance Database covering the period of 2003 and 2014 is used to examine whether there is difference in performance between born global firms and firms adopting the traditional stage. Second, the impact of the role influential factors inducing firms to follow the born global path on the selected SMEs are investigated. Logit panel regressions are performed for this purpose. Finally, using the primary data collected through questionnaires and a Structural Model Equation model analysis, the role of entrepreneurship played in the performance of Born Global firms are examined. The main findings of this research generally support the hypotheses derived from our theoretical framework. It shows positive a positive relationship between born global mode and firm’s performance. And the choice to be a born global firm is affected by the location and R&D investment but not its size. In addition, it also indicates that the entrepreneurs in born global firms are aware that international knowledge is significantly related to firm’s performance. The study contributes in offering new insights into the internationalisation of Chinese SMEs by investigating the difference in firm performance between two internationalisation models and influential factors of born global firms in the context of China in particular.