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SMEs' regional diversification: dynamic patterns and home market institutional determinants
Dalarna University, School of Culture and Society, Business Administration and Management. Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China; Uppsala University.
Dalarna University, School of Culture and Society, Business Administration and Management. Uppsala University.
Dalarna University, School of Culture and Society, Business Administration and Management. Dalarna University, School of Information and Engineering, Microdata Analysis.
2024 (English)In: International Marketing Review, ISSN 0265-1335, E-ISSN 1758-6763, Vol. 41, no 2, p. 358-385Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Purpose: The authors seek to advance the understanding of small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) internationalization at the regional level and examine the role of home market institutions in this process. Design/methodology/approach: The authors analyze hypotheses with data from SMEs in five country markets and from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. A cluster analysis establishes the regional diversification patterns (based on regional diversification scope, speed and rhythm) and a multinomial regression tests the effect of home market institutions on their adoption. Findings: The results offer a refined picture of SME regional diversification by revealing three patterns: intra-regionally focused firms, late inter-region diversifiers and early inter-region diversifiers. They also suggest that the adoption of these patterns is determined by SMEs' home market institutions. Originality/value: The authors develop a nuanced understanding of SME internationalization by building upon and expanding the regionalization rationale in the internationalization patterns literature. Additionally, the authors address the acknowledged, yet rarely investigated, country-level determinants of internationalization patterns. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Emerald Publishing , 2024. Vol. 41, no 2, p. 358-385
Keywords [en]
Institutional-based view, Regional diversification pattern, Regional integration, Semi-globalization, SME internationalization
National Category
Business Administration
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-47321DOI: 10.1108/IMR-12-2021-0364Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85176724595OAI: oai:DiVA.org:du-47321DiVA, id: diva2:1815315
Available from: 2023-11-28 Created: 2023-11-28 Last updated: 2025-01-09Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Decision-making strategies of internationalization under challenging times: Lessons from SMEs
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Decision-making strategies of internationalization under challenging times: Lessons from SMEs
2023 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly important actors of the global market and are particularly exposed to be affected in a scenario marked by an ongoing process of deglobalization and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both of these phenomena potentialize the liabilities that firms experience abroad, namely foreignness and outsidership. Despite extant progress in understanding the challenging aspects of operating in international markets, there is not much knowledge about how firms’ decision logic frames their international behavior as these firms interact with the various liabilities of firm internationalization. In the same spirit of research that have leveraged the study of SMEs’ international trajectories to unveil new aspects of firm internationalization as a phenomenon, the general purpose of this thesis is: To explore what lessons from SME foreign market expansion can help to understand internationalization decision-making under challenging circumstances. Such a purpose makes room for research questions that call for the use of microdata to solve problems with broad implications for a population of firms. Empirically, this thesis builds on a quantitative research design based on survey data collected from 885 SMEs distributed in Brazil, China, Italy, Poland, and Sweden. Analyses of these data were performed with multiple regression equations, structural equation modelling using partial least squares, and multinomial logistic regression. Results help to understand how the liabilities of foreignness and outsidership can be associated with uncertainties that, together with the resources available to be used by the firms, can lead SMEs to adopt non-predictive strategies to operate abroad. In addition to that, they also indicate how elements of those liabilities can be perceived in dynamics that moderate outcomes of the strategies selected by the SMEs. Such findings provide a platform to extrapolate insights and propositions to advance the discussion of internationalization decision-making under modern challenges such as deglobalization and the COVID-19 pandemic. Theoretical implications of this thesis hold potential to touch the more general research on firm internationalization, whereas its practical implications may help in evolving the support tools available for assisting internationalization decision-making.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Borlänge: Dalarna University, 2023
Series
Dalarna Doctoral Dissertations ; 23
Keywords
Institutions, business networks, uncertainty, international market performance, internationalization speed
National Category
Business Administration Computer and Information Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:du-42881 (URN)978-91-88679-39-0 (ISBN)
Public defence
2023-01-17, an online seminar, 10:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2022-12-16 Created: 2022-10-24 Last updated: 2023-11-28Bibliographically approved

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Bai, WensongJohanson, MartinOliveira, Luis

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