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This study has two main objectives. First, to examine the indirect effects of digital platform capability and digital resilience on digital transformation (DT) outcomes for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and second, to investigate how digital business model maturity influences these indirect effects.

The study adopts a quantitative design and collects data through a self-reporting survey from individuals in the technological industries. The Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) and PLS multi-group analysis examine the measurement and structural models and the significance of differences in indirect paths based on the digital business model maturity level, serving as a moderator.

The findings of this study provide valuable insights into the internationalisation of digital SMEs. They indicate that digital platform capability and resilience fully mediate, connecting digital resources to SME growth. The study also confirms the digital business model maturity’s positive and significant moderating effect on these indirect relationships.

This research contributes to the existing literature by focusing on the international outcomes of platform ecosystems in developing markets. It explores how digital platform capability and resilience support the digital transformation of SMEs, considering their vulnerability due to their small size. The study also fills a research gap by investigating the relationship between big data, digital leadership and the international growth of digital platforms. Lastly, it explores the role of digital maturity in the relationships between antecedents, determinants and outcomes of digitalisation.

This study aims to solve the realistic dilemma between the importance of entrepreneurship and the high rate of entrepreneurial failure, and to point out the direction of subsequent research.

The paper takes the form of a literature review.

Entrepreneurial activities involve multiple dimensions. Entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial teams will be affected by multiple factors when starting a business, and sufficient attention should be paid to both the factors within the group and the factors outside the group such as institutional quality and market competition. High entrepreneurial failure rate is an essential characteristic of entrepreneurial activities, while solving this problem requires entrepreneurs to maintain passion, clarify their own motivation, improve their learning abilities and adopt appropriate entrepreneurial strategies to improve entrepreneurial performance. Meanwhile, it also urgent to build entrepreneurial teams with common goals, heterogeneous knowledge structure, outstanding learning ability, solid mutual trust, strong social influence and social capital. Successful entrepreneurship should adhere to the perspective of openness and cooperation. It should not only actively strengthen international cooperation but also fully adapt to the country’s system and culture. Sustainable growth of entrepreneurial enterprises requires not only stable commercial revenue but also responsibility to society, which in turn leads to a good reputation and high social recognition.

The authors hope this review can provide some insightful viewpoints for deepening the theoretical system of entrepreneurship, improving the success rate of entrepreneurship and promoting the sustainable growth of enterprises.

Further research can be carried out on the promotion of business growth by entrepreneurship at the micro level in the following aspects: analyze functional mechanism between innovation and entrepreneurship; entrepreneurship research by integrating multiple institutional contexts and cultural traditions; consider the changes in emerging technologies on entrepreneurial activities; diversified mechanism between entrepreneurship education and business growth.

Even after establishing their business successfully, many business owners get demotivated, and it leads to unwillingness to grow. This study aims to propose a comprehensive model that represents interrelationships among various personal factors affecting “unwillingness to grow.”

The personal factors for unwillingness to grow were identified by extant literature, and expert interviews were conducted to establish the contextual relationships among these factors. The interrelationships among the filtered variables have been done using interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and MICMAC analysis was done to determine the importance of each factor in influencing “unwillingness to grow.”

In total, 30 personal attributes were identified from previous literature, out of which 15 were selected for the final study. The result identifies 7 variables having a strong impact on “unwillingness to grow.” These attributes are “absence of strong network,” “lack of vision,” “lack of proactiveness,” “reluctance to involve external consultants,” “absence of/small founding team,” “lack of ambition” and “improper attitude.”

The research attempts to create a bricolage of all the important personal factors affecting “unwillingness to grow.” Previous researches have used few attributes, but with the help of ISM, a graphical modeling technique, it became possible to draw interrelationship between 15 attributes. Further, with the help of MICMAC, the importance of each attribute was determined.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrative picture of the state of the art of the literature on digitalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as an enabler for their internationalisation process and as a comprehensive view of the specific domains impacted by digital technologies as well as their repercussions on the international outreach.

A systematic review which leverages a descriptive analysis of extant literature and an axial coding technique has been conducted to shed light on the current knowledge and to identify primary research areas and future research lines.

The research indicates that digitalisation impacts the internationalisation of SMEs in three specific domains: (1) internationalisation through the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) technologies and e-commerce platforms; (2) international expansion through the digitalisation of value chain activities and (3) international outreach through knowledge acquisition on digital platforms.

The value of this study is threefold. First, the authors attempt to systematically review the literature on SMEs digitalisation and internationalisation and provide a holistic perspective on the intertwining of these two research streams. Second, the authors propose a novel conceptualisation on the dimensions of SMEs digitalisation as enablers to internationalisation. Third, the authors put forward promising future lines of research.

1. Digitalisation represents a pivotal strategy that allows companies to build new strategic capabilities and is a propeller for SMEs internationalisation.

2. Through e-commerce, SMEs could compete at the same level of multinational companies but enduring lower costs of expansion.

3. Digital platforms allow SMEs to enhance the learning processes about international markets through an immediate access to relevant information.

4. Digital entrepreneurship has enabled SMEs to develop new configurations of value chain activities, evolving their business model or reaching new markets.

5. SMEs are changing the “business as usual” paradigm offering digital tools to build modular architectures that are scalable and agile in their evolution ability.

Digitalisation represents a pivotal strategy that allows companies to build new strategic capabilities and is a propeller for SMEs internationalisation.

Through e-commerce, SMEs could compete at the same level of multinational companies but enduring lower costs of expansion.

Digital platforms allow SMEs to enhance the learning processes about international markets through an immediate access to relevant information.

Digital entrepreneurship has enabled SMEs to develop new configurations of value chain activities, evolving their business model or reaching new markets.

SMEs are changing the “business as usual” paradigm offering digital tools to build modular architectures that are scalable and agile in their evolution ability.

This paper examines how soft skills training for owner-managers affects the financial performance of exporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Furthermore, the authors examine the differential influence of specific owner-manager skills, such as “team working skills”, “technical skills” and “leadership skills”, on performance.

The paper utilises the Longitudinal Small Business Survey, which is a nationally representative employer dataset of UK SMEs with up to 249 employees, including those with no employees. The dataset contains information on firms' turnover, export status of goods or services and training provision for employees or owner-managers.

The results suggest that owner-manager's training has a positive effect on turnover in non-exporting firms. Moreover, a combination of soft and hard skills is associated with higher turnover in exporting firms. Amongst the specific skills of owner-managers, training on “team working” has the most significant impact on exporting SMEs' performance.

The authors' findings imply that managerial training to develop soft skills such as leadership, decision-making and communication is a worthwhile investment. The knowledge that owner-managers acquire through soft and hard skills training enables them to develop essential internationalisation competencies. Moreover, the authors demonstrate that teamwork is a significant predictor of performance.

The authors contribute to the literature by examining the role of owner-managers' training in shaping internal systems, structure, processes and internationalisation strategies, thus affecting SMEs performance. The authors' also provide a nuanced analysis of how various types of soft and hard skills underpin the successful implementation of internationalisation initiatives.

This study focuses on the triadic multilevel psychic distance (MPD) between the firm, target market and bridge-maker and its consequences for firm internationalization. Specifically, it spotlights the triadic psychic distance between firms, the levels of psychic distance in the target market (country and business) and the bridge-maker. Therefore, this study examines the triadic MPD among these three entities and its impact on firm internationalization.

This study uses qualitative and case study research approaches. It is based on 8 case companies and 24 internationalization cases. Secondary data were collected, and interviews with bridge-makers and industry experts were conducted.

The study found that MPD appeared in the triad. The MPD between firms and markets is related to country-specific differences and business difficulties. The MPD between the firm and the bridge-maker is based on the latter’s lack of knowledge vis-à-vis bridging the firm’s MPD. Finally, the MPD between bridge-makers and the market is based on the former’s lack of knowledge of the home country’s business difficulties.

This is the first study to develop and adopt a triadic multilevel psychic distance conceptualization that provides evidence for and sheds light on the triadic MPD and its effect on firm internationalization. This study identifies the reasons behind triadic MPD in connection to firm internationalization. Notably, firm internationalization is interdependent on the triadic MPD setting between the firm, bridge-maker and target market. It has theoretical value and contributes to the recent advancement in the understanding of MPD in international marketing literature.

A key challenge for exporters and international marketing/purchasing managers is formulating strategic responses to deal with geopolitical disruptions during a trade war between superpowers. While past studies provide insightful analysis of the influence of changes in the institutional environment (regulatory pressures) on national and firm-level trade activities, they tend to ignore the association between inward (sourcing) or outward (export) international activities of firms during a trade war. In this study, we aim to explore various strategic options employed by third-party SME exporters in response to geopolitical disruptions, institutional pressures and constraints during a trade war.

We adopted a qualitative methodology and applied a hermeneutical approach in collecting, analysing and theorising interview findings. We conducted interviews with 15 owners or senior managers from 12 Australian and New Zealand exporters that exported or sourced significantly from at least one party of the trade war, the USA or China, between 2018 and 2020.

Our study developed a typology of fencing vs. balancing for explaining third-party SME exporters’ response strategies in terms of export market and international sourcing locations during a trade war. Fencing strategy centres on location choice decisions based on a fence or a secure buffer zone. Balancing strategy focuses on leveraging opportunities outside the conflict zone, i.e. third-party countries. Our study finds that exporters’ location choice decisions are influenced by a number of institutional factors during the trade war.

Firstly, our study examined only the early phase of the trade war under the “Trump” era. Future research may consider a longitudinal study design that examines exporters’ responses to global political uncertainty over a longer term. Secondly, we chose Australia and New Zealand as the focal context of this study. Future research could investigate exporters from other third-party countries that have different institutional conditions during the US-China trade war.

Firstly, an exporting firm should monitor and assess closely the wider changes in international relations between their home country’s major security partner and major trading partner, and the impact of these changes on the political risks of operating in international locations. Secondly, as the trade war intensifies, the fencing option needs to be given a greater weight than the balancing option in the strategic decision making of an exporter from a third-party country. Lastly, we encourage marketers and managers to reflect on and differentiate short-term and long-term benefits in strategic market-sourcing location decisions.

Our study makes a pioneering effort to theorise the linkages between institutional factors and the combined evaluation of export market selection and sourcing location selection choices under global political uncertainty based on the institution-based view. We present a conceptual framework highlighting the importance of institutional avoidance, embeddedness, comparative institutional advantages and multiple institutional logics for SME exporters’ international location selections during the trade war. Furthermore, we combine these institutional factors into two overarching constructs namely institutional buffer and institutional pluralism.

Gazelle companies are characterized by rapid growth in a short time. Identifying the determinants of this exponential expansion is important as these firms have a significant impact on the economy. They generate increased employment and investment by investors interested in new opportunities. Previous studies have failed to reach a consensus about what fosters high growth in gazelle companies as each firm’s geographical, political and economic context is different. The present research uses cognitive mapping and interpretive structural modeling (ISM) to overcome the limitations of prior investigations and identify factors that can potentially accelerate growth in gazelle companies.

Two sessions were held with an expert panel with knowledge about and experience with these firms. In the first session, data were collected to create a group cognitive map, while the second meeting comprised ISM-based analyses of the high-growth determinants identified and the causal relationships between them. A final consolidation session was held to discuss the results with two members of the Committee for Central Region Coordination and Development (i.e. Comissão de Coordenação e Desenvolvimento Regional do Centro – a public entity that grants gazelle awards in Portugal).

The analysis system created was tested, and the results demonstrate that the dual methodology used can increase our understanding of the dynamics of high-growth determinants and lead to more informed and potentially better evaluations of gazelle companies. Indeed, once high-growth determinants in gazelle companies are understood, this information can help other firms implement the same business model to achieve similarly rapid growth. The strengths and shortcomings of this new structured analysis model are also analyzed.

The authors know of no prior work reporting the integrated use of cognitive mapping and ISM in this study context.

The current chapter proposes a theoretical framework to assess the sustainability of economic growth in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States. The authors integrate insights from endogenous growth models and consider the unique socioeconomic characteristics of the GCC region to provide a comprehensive and tailored approach to understanding the determinants of economic growth and formulating effective policy measures to foster sustainable development and growth. This chapter highlights the environmental challenges faced by GCC; based on this, the authors suggested indicators to construct a theoretical framework (Economic Growth, Climatic Indicators, Energy Indicators, Social Indicators, and Economic Resources Indicators). The authors propose that policymakers and researchers in GCC States should take these factors into account when devising policies or conducting research aimed at fostering sustainable economic growth. Overall, this chapter presents significant insights for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders involved in promoting the sustainable economic advancement of the GCC States.

Publicly available datasets in the USA present data suppression issues that limit the ability to investigate entrepreneurial subgroups like military veterans, which account for about one in ten entrepreneurs in the USA. Thus, despite public desire to support veteran entrepreneurs (“vetrepreneurs”), there is a limited descriptive understanding on the relationship between veteran business owner demographics, such as gender and race, and their business survival and growth. We address this limited understanding in this article by providing descriptive evidence on veteran-owned business survival and growth, emphasizing variation across race and gender.

We use limited-access longitudinal microdata to provide descriptive evidence on the survival and growth of veteran-owned firms across race and gender.

Findings indicate statistically significant variation across demographic subgroups’ business survival and employment growth. For example, veteran-owned firms have high women ownership rates, greater employment, revenues and payrolls, but also lower employment and revenue growth. More generally we provide descriptive evidence that military experience or the military community help women overcome the gender gap in small business survival.

This type of descriptive research is common among entrepreneurial researchers, however, peer-reviewed research specific to US veterans is very limited. These descriptive results are useful for policymakers and for spurring future policy research related to veteran entrepreneurs.