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The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of small- and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) domestic network structural attributes on their ex post internationalisation strategic innovation and adaptiveness in the host country.

The model fit of SME domestic network structural attributes and their ex post international performance was examined using structural equation modelling on data gathered from a sample of 263 SMEs from Croatia, a transition and emerging economy. Hierarchical regression analysis was further performed to test both the direct and moderating effects.

The study revealed that domestic network informality (DNF) moderates the link between SME domestic network centrality and their international innovation. Similarly, the findings show that DNF strengthens the negative association between domestic network density and SME international innovation and strategic adaptiveness. Moreover, the study did not find any direct impact of these domestic networks’ structural attributes (density and centrality) on SME international innovation and strategic adaptiveness.

Scholars have emphasised the importance and urgency for further research attention on the role of networks on SMEs’ internationalisation activities from emerging economies. This study responds to this call, and to the knowledge of the authors, is the first to examine the role of domestic network attributes on SME international performance in emerging economies. The findings provide new insightful contributions to the social network perspective and the international entrepreneurship literatures.

The paper examines the degree of interlocking directorships across the major Eurozone economies. It uses the major stock market indices in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium to identify the top of the corporate elite in each country. For the period of 2005–2008, it studies transnational links between European companies. The paper draws attention to a number of features of these interlocks. Firstly transnational interlocks remain relatively low but secondly they do vary considerably. An important issue here is the degree of bilateral integration which is occurring between some countries within the Eurozone, for example France and Belgium, and the degree to which other countries, most notably, Italy are increasingly disconnected, whilst the two most powerful economies, France and Germany, are very weakly connected. This variability reflects a series of structural divides between big business in the Eurozone that makes it difficult for this corporate elites to be cohesive at the European level.

The study aimed to analyze the influence of network embeddedness on the innovation performance of high-tech enterprises in Guangdong Province.

A conceptual model of the influence of network embeddedness on the innovation performance of high-tech enterprises in Guangdong province is established, which takes the business model as the mediating variable and political association as the moderating variable. Multivariate statistical analysis and the MacKinnon confidence interval method were used to analyze 418 questionnaires.

The results show that both relational embeddedness and structural embeddedness have significant positive effects on the innovation performance of high-tech enterprises in Guangdong Province. The business model has a partial mediating effect between relationship embeddedness, structure embeddedness, and innovation performance of high-tech enterprises in Guangdong Province, respectively. Political relevance has a significant negative moderating effect on the relationship between the relationship embeddedness and innovation performance of high-tech enterprises in Guangdong Province, but the moderating effect on structural embeddedness and innovation performance of high-tech enterprises in Guangdong province has not been verified.

The study of this paper also has some shortcomings: very few data research samples exist; the external factors affecting the performance of high-tech enterprises in Guangdong Province need to be further refined. The research scale needs further improvement.

In this paper, embedding theory, transaction cost theory, resource dependence theory, rent-seeking theory, new institution theory and uncertainty management theory were integrated by system attempt to reveal the mediating and moderating roles of business model and political relevance, respectively, between network embeddedness behavior and entrepreneurial innovation performance of high-tech enterprises. The research conclusions expand the relevant research in the field of entrepreneurial innovation. At the same time, the research results provide theoretical support and reference for the innovative growth of high-tech enterprises and government behavior decision-making in Guangdong province.

Network embeddedness will have a profound impact on the entrepreneurial innovation performance of high-tech enterprises. Existing research has overlooked discussing this issue from the perspective of internal and external influencing factors within the enterprise. Therefore, this study addresses this issue by (1) introducing the business model as the mediating variable from an internal perspective of the enterprise, (2) introducing political association as the moderating variable from an external perspective of the enterprise and (3) 418 original questionnaires of high-tech enterprises in Guangdong Province were used to test the effect of the study variables.

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 twofold: to publish scholarly works that extend knowledge on the drivers, consequences and boundary conditions of international marketing strategies employed by emerging market firms of all sizes and types; and to advance a narrative for future research on emerging market firms’ international marketing activities.

To achieve this agenda, the authors invited scholars to submit quality manuscripts to the special issue. Manuscripts that addressed the special issue theme from varied theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches were invited.

Out of 70 manuscripts reviewed, 7 are eventually accepted for inclusion in this special issue. The papers touched on interesting research topics bothering on international marketing practices of emerging market firms using blend of interesting theoretical perspectives and variety of methods. Key theoretical perspectives used include resource-based theory, internationalization theory, institutional theory and corporate visual identity theory. The authors employed unique sets of methods including literature review, surveys, panel data, and process-based qualitative and case-study enquiries. The authors used some of the most advanced analytical techniques to analyze their data.

This introduction to the special issue provides a review of the extant literature on the international marketing strategy of emerging market firms, focusing on summarizing key empirical contributions on the topic over the last three decades. Subsequently, the authors discuss how each paper included in this special issue helps advance the agenda to develop scholarly knowledge on emerging market firms’ international marketing strategy.

This paper reviews the literature on internationalization barriers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from developing countries. The purposes of the study are: (1) to explicitly point out specific factors influencing the growth and internationalization of SMEs from developing countries and (2) to identify the research gaps to provide lucid and succinct directions for future research in this area.

The authors selected relevant papers from journals listed on Web of Science and Scopus databases.

It was found that there are large number of questions remain unanswered regarding the internationalization of SMEs from developing countries regarding the factors determining their growth and internationalization.

This review distinctively accentuates previous studies on such barriers influencing the growth of SMEs from developing countries and systematically synthesize the issues faced by those SMEs. Thus, the authors seek to provide a comprehensible platform for researchers working in this area.

The paper aims to highlight the role of Web 2.0 in international marketing, shedding light on the relationships existing between the country of origin effect and consumer behavior.

The current study, drawn on the country of the origin (COO)W literature and Web 2.0 diffusion data, investigates the relationships between country of origin – seen as an idiosyncratic entrepreneurial offer – and the consumer, within an international marketing framework. Specifically, the paper focuses on the increasing role of Web 2.0 and social media as tools enabling enterprises to create and maintain adaptive and networking capabilities and to implement international marketing strategies.

The findings presented here reveal that international marketing is becoming increasingly similar to domestic marketing because of social media development. In other words, it is becoming more and more difficult for international products to contain themselves within single markets as local issues seldom remain local.

This paper fills a gap in the international marketing literature focusing on how social media, particularly in a pandemic era, can improve and enhance relationships between the product of origin and consumer behavior both in the assessment and in the actual purchase of products.

Ferranti Defence Systems Ltd has been instructed to proceed with the production of an inertial navigation system (INS) for the Royal Air Force GR5 Harrier aircraft.

Building on theories of inter-organizational knowledge flows and social network, we explored how two types of collaboration network embeddedness (NE) (i.e. structural embeddedness (SE) and relational embeddedness (RE)) drive firms' inbound and outbound open innovation (OI) practices from a knowledge flow perspective, and further examined these relationships are to what extent contingent on network inertia (NI).

In this empirical research, the authors collected a sample of patents in the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industry over the period of 2000–2018. Then the authors examined the direct roles of SE and RE in collaboration networks on firms' inbound and outbound OI practices from a knowledge flow perspective, and the moderating role of NI by using negative binomial regression.

Empirical results from our study of 96 firms showed that both bridging structural holes position in collaboration networks (i.e. SE) and having stronger tie strength (i.e. RE) would positively affects firms' inbound OI practices, whereas only having stronger tie strength in collaboration networks (i.e. RE) would facilitate outbound OI practices. In addition, NI strengthens the relationships between SE and firm OI practice, but weakens the positive roles of RE on firm OI practice.

This empirical research provides new insights into whether and how firms can grasp the benefits of collaboration NE to conduct OI activities by exploring NI contingencies. It further sheds lights on the scope of the NE–OI issue from a knowledge flow perspective by extending its research context to UAV industry.

This paper aims to develop a thorough understanding of industry-specific networking behaviour on the internationalization performance of Czech small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The authors used a profile deviation-ideal profile methodology to explore the ideal networking behaviour profile of different industries. The authors argue that firms adhering to ideal profiles performed well in the international market, while firms deviating from the ideal profile performed poorly. Data were collected through an online questionnaire specifically targeted at Czech SME executives. The authors attempted to explore these issues by using four aspects of networking behaviour to test the ideal networking behaviour profile of five different industries (automotive, telecommunications, construction, audit and finance and transportation).

The authors have identified different ideal networking behaviour profile for three industries, which underpinned supported the hypothesis that each dimension of networking behaviour should be fine-tuned for each sector to achieve to attain maximum benefits and performance in the international market.

Although previous studies supported the role of networking behaviour in improving internationalization performance, multiple studies had also provided conflicting results on how networking affects different industries and it is unclear how and why networking affects these various industries differently. The authors believe that the results research provides empirical evidence in proving that different networking dimensions should be fine-tuned as per industry to achieve the highest performance in the international market. The authors believe that the findings broaden the current understanding of the role of networks in the internationalization. The authors believe that the findings extend the current understanding of the role of networks in the internationalization of SMEs.