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This paper aims to explore the underlying reasons for business model change among internationalizing SMEs and illustrate how home market context affects that change.

This is a comparative case study of two companies with similar backgrounds from different countries of origin. In each case, the data were collected by means of in-depth interviews with key informants. For its theoretical background, the study draws on the business model innovation and international business literature.

The authors found that home market context has two kinds of effect on business model change in internationalizing SMEs. First, home market maturity has a strong effect on the timing of companies’ internationalization efforts. Second, the company’s home market can either be used to strengthen the value proposition or may be disguised, depending on how the country of origin is seen in international markets. This factor has a strong influence on how SMEs change their business model when internationalizing.

The study’s limitations relate to its qualitative and exploratory nature. Future research should further assess the generalizability of these findings across different cultural contexts and countries of origin by quantifying the central concepts and examining how they relate to larger-scale cross-national and cross-sectional panel data.

As internationalization increasingly poses both threats and opportunities, companies must be able to experiment with business models when necessary to adapt to the host market. In so doing, it is also important to consider how a company’s home market affects business model change.

This is one of the first studies to illustrate how the process of internationalization drives SMEs to change their business models. As such, the paper enhances existing understanding of business model change in the context of internationalization. To our knowledge, no previous study has described these dynamics in a comparative context that takes account of SME country of origin.

The purpose of this study is to provide a foundational understanding of the internationalization of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the context of renewable energy markets. The focus is on exploring and identifying the managerial-, firm- and environmental-level antecedents to their international expansion, which also furthers the understanding of the distinct SME’s internationalization context within the renewable energy market.

The study adopts a qualitative multiple case study approach in a Finnish SME context and identifies the antecedents’ relative prominence at the managerial, firm and environmental levels.

The findings indicate that, although internationalization antecedents of renewable energy SMEs differ owing to market forces such as trends, networks and changing regulatory policies, they share antecedents similar to those of SMEs in other industries.

The main limitation of this study is its single-country home market empirical context. Future studies should expand analysis to different regulatory and regional environments.

To the authors’ knowledge, there are few studies that explore the antecedents of SMEs’ internationalization, especially in the renewable energy market context. Hence, this study contributes to the international business and entrepreneurship literature by illustrating the fundamental managerial-, firm- and environmental-level antecedents to the internationalization of SMEs operating in the renewable energy business. In addition, it highlights the peculiarities of renewable energy SMEs’ internationalization, suggesting that extant research on SMEs’ internationalization has not adequately captured the intricacies present in the internationalization of renewable energy enterprises.

Little research has been done on the emergence of companies that engage in increasingly digital entrepreneurship with digitalized value-chain activities. The purpose of this paper is provide a consistent picture of how value-chain digitalization affects companies’ internationalization and international marketing (IM), and give insights regarding the influence of the degree of value-chain digitalization on the level of internationalization.

This paper takes an explorative approach based on a literature review and uses a conceptual analysis and research framework to empirically classify digitalized/-ing companies.

This study finds ways to classify the internationalization of companies according to the degree of digitalization of their value-chain. The more these companies use internet hardware infrastructure and web and mobile software technologies, the better they can leverage their foreign assets, achieving a higher share of foreign sales with relatively limited foreign assets.

The results enrich the literature on internationalization and IM and entrepreneurship to explain companies that are distinctly digitalized across their value-chain activities.

This research provides evidence for companies regarding digitalization of the value-chain to facilitate entrepreneurial opportunities and offer rapid, efficient and affordable internationalization.

This research tackles a novel phenomenon by analyzing companies’ value-chain digitalization in relation to their degree of internationalization and IM.

The purpose of this study is to develop a framework of the elements of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the context of born global start-ups. The study also applies this framework to uncover the ecosystem elements that impact start-ups during their initial phases of discovery and validation.

The authors used an online survey questionnaire sent out to several Estonian start-ups. Based on the responses, a dataset was developed and analysed using STATA and t-test methodology.

The analysis resulted in the identification of seven systemic ecosystem elements as the main factors impacting the launch and ten elements impacting the growth of born global start-ups. The systemic elements that comprise the ecosystem’s strengths and weaknesses were also identified.

The cross-sectional nature of the survey method and the single-country context are noted as limitations of the study and offer future research potential for longitudinal settings, for mixed method studies and for comparative country data.

The study suggests that start-ups should function in a more collective manner to create platforms, promote one another’s products and services where possible and launch collective initiatives to enhance their visibility in the global context. Born globals should engage with their local entrepreneurial ecosystem, while remaining aware of its relative strengths and weaknesses for supporting internationalisation.

Although the local ecosystem involves many stakeholders, this study helps identify key stakeholders that should be focused on by the government. Doing so will help create an increasingly comprehensive ecosystem at the national level – one that functions efficiently in supporting growth-seeking enterprises such as born globals.

This study combines the two research streams of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and born globals by directly connecting them with systemic elements. This study is, to our knowledge, the first to combine the two, thus making an added contribution by highlighting macro- and micro-viewpoints, with the former lacking in research on born globals and the latter in research on ecosystems. Thus, the present study helps in bringing venture creation and local ecosystem development research closer to each other.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of institutional environment on the international performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and how this relationship is influenced by network competence.

This study uses a quantitative approach. In total, 119 internationally operating Finnish SMEs from five industry sectors are sampled via a cross-sectional survey. Data are analysed through regression modelling.

The international performance of SMEs is influenced directly and indirectly by institutional drivers. The results show that network competence mediates the positive relationship between institutional drivers and international performance.

Network capability development can help SMEs leverage more or less favourable institutional environments for successful internationalisation. Perceived institutional drivers directly result in higher performance, but the effect can be partially mediated by dynamic capabilities. The limitations of the study include its single-country context and the cross-sectional nature of the data.

SMEs should take their home countries’ institutional environments into account, but for long-term success, they should develop the ability to manage their business networks. A conducive institutional environment may help develop competence, which in turn can enable more successful internationalisation in terms of scale, scope and satisfaction.

Decision-makers may benefit from knowing that, in addition to capabilities, an institutionally conducive environment that drives domestic SMEs towards international markets may be an antecedent of successful internationalisation in the SME sector.

This is one of the few studies to illustrate how network capabilities can mediate the influence of institutional factors on entrepreneurial internationalisation. It combines institutional theory and the dynamic capabilities view to explain successful SME internationalisation.

The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the conceptual frameworks and concepts with which the research on internationalization patterns of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) should be conducted.

A comprehensive overview of concepts and a conceptual framework to study internationalization patterns of SMEs is offered.

The complexities of existing definitions and methodologies for researching internationalization patterns are highlighted, and a synthesis of the issues is provided. An integrative model of internationalization pathways, and their antecedents and outcomes is presented.

It is recommended that future research focuses especially on the time dimension of internationalization patterns. Future research can contribute to the literature by adopting a longitudinal approach with larger samples and more detailed cases to capture the dynamics of internationalization.

Practitioners might map their positions, and look for challenges and opportunities with regard to their chosen internationalization pattern. They can also benchmark other firms’ pathways and fine‐tune their own approach to internationalization.

The paper integrates a large body of research in an important research area in international marketing. It also provides guidance on how to conduct future research in the area, and introduces the content of this special issue of the International Marketing Review.

The concept of global mindset was introduced more than a decade ago as a prerequisite for successful internationalisation of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, the pace of global integration and globalisation has accelerated, and complexity has increased. Therefore, the authors ask: To what extent is global mindset still a critical driver for successful international expansion of SMEs? We are particularly interested in learning how global mindset is reflected in the decision making of internationalising SMEs in Finland. To answer this question, we test four propositions which concern the relationship between global mindset, decision-making logic and SME performance. Our empirical study is based on a cross-sectional sample of Finnish SMEs, and the authors find that global mindset seems to be linked to both effectual decision-making logic and improved international performance. On the other hand, in our data set effectual decision making and SME performance were not linked; thus, global mindset predicts international rather than overall performance of the Finnish SMEs. Overall, this study confirms the continued relevance of the global mindset concept. Furthermore, it indicates the connection between global mindset and entrepreneurial decision making and that their joint effect is relevant when explaining entrepreneurial internationalisation.

This paper addresses the strategic orientations (entrepreneurial orientation, learning orientation, and market orientation) of rapidly internationalizing small software companies.

The empirical analysis is based on an intensive investigation of ten small Finnish software companies that have exhibited rapid and proactive internationalization behavior.

It is argued that the manifestations of the orientations evolve as the small company develops, and these concepts are thus strongly related to the internationalization process. Further, an entrepreneurial orientation, especially a strong desire to seek growth in international markets, must be embedded in the mindset of the rapidly internationalizing small company. However, It is argued that it does not have an effect on the success of the international venture if it is not combined with strong learning and market orientations.

This paper brings an evolutionary viewpoint to the existing academic debate of strategic orientations of companies. It is suggested that the current conceptualization of entrepreneurial orientation should be developed to include also measures of market orientation.

It is suggested that the members of the management team of a small and global software company should not only possess a highly entrepreneurial mindset and previous experience of international operations, they should also show strong commitment to considering the customers the most important stakeholders of the company, and a willingness and ability to learn rapidly from all available information about global markets.

This is the first qualitative investigation of the strategic orientations during the internationalization process of small companies.

The impact of environmental sustainability and knowledge dynamics on entrepreneurial growth and internationalization could do with added research focus. However, the rising importance of corporate sustainability and social responsibility in global business and entrepreneurship increasingly requires that these interdependencies be assessed. We assess these dynamics empirically through both quantitative and qualitative analyses. With the former, we employ a cross-sectional sample of Finnish small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to illustrate the impact of learning orientation and environmental sustainability on their growth and internationalization. Specifically, we find that their impacts on entrepreneurial growth depend on the stage of their internationalization: Learning orientation predicts first foreign market entry among the enterprises, while environmental orientation predicts the subsequent performance among internationally operating enterprises. In addition, we find no moderation or mediation effects between learning orientation and sustainability, suggesting that their impacts are distinct from each other. We conclude by discussing these results and their implications on international entrepreneurial growth, and knowledge and sustainability dynamics in the entrepreneurial context.