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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.

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.

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.

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.

Few researchers and even fewer practitioners would deny that serendipitous events play a central role in the growth process of firms. However, most international marketing models ignore the role of serendipity in the opportunity discovery process. The authors provide a nuanced view on international opportunities by developing the role of serendipitous opportunities in the foreign market entry process. The authors develop a model integrating the notions of serendipity, entrepreneurial logic, experiential knowledge and network knowledge redundancy. From the study’s model, the authors condense three sets of hypotheses on the relationships among experiential knowledge and entry strategy, network knowledge redundancy, entry strategy and serendipity.

The authors confront the study’s hypotheses with data collected on-site at 168 Swedish firms covering 234 opportunities, and to test the hypotheses, the authors ran ordinary least squares (OLS) regression tests in three steps.

The results of the study’s analysis reveal that experiential knowledge and network knowledge redundancy both lead to a logic based on rigid planning and systematic search, which in turn reduces the likelihood that serendipitous opportunities will be realized in the foreign market entry process.

This is the first study that develops a measure of opportunities that are the outcome of serendipitous events. In addition, the authors integrate network and learning theories and internationalization theory by establishing antecedents to, and outcomes of, the entry strategy.

The purpose of the study is to examine the political sources of uncertainty in the internationalization process of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The authors theoretically derived a research model embracing three hypotheses. These hypotheses are tested on a sample of 203 on-site interviewed SMEs. Regression analysis is used to test two individual hypotheses and one interaction effect.

The regression analysis reveals that political knowledge possessed by the firm reduces uncertainty in the internationalization process. Political turbulence is shown to increase uncertainty in the internationalization. The interaction shows that political turbulence obliterates the uncertainty reducing effect by political knowledge.

The authors identifies two main political sources of uncertainty in the internationalization process of SMEs. For managers and business researchers, it is shown that experiential knowledge is useful under stable conditions. When turbulence increases, however, firms need to develop alternative strategies for uncertainty management.

This study is the first to test the uncertainty reducing effects of experiential knowledge in turbulent environments. Thus, by running the interaction between political knowledge and political turbulence, the authors shed new light on the usefulness of previous experiences in the internationalization process.

The purpose of this study is to develop internationalization process theory by examining the relationship between small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) international experience and their degree of insidership in newly opened business networks.

The study applies a quantitative approach. Data were collected on-site at 203 SMEs having entered the Baltic States, Poland, Russia and China. The data are analysed with structural equation modeling in SmartPLS.

The paper reveals that international experience is positively associated with both the country and customer experience in the newly opened business network. Country experience, in turn, is strongly associated with a firm's degree of insidership in the business network. Conflicting with the hypothesized model, no support is found for the direct relationship between international experience and insidership. Nor does the analysis reveal any significant relationship between a firm's customer experience, in terms of variation, in the newly opened business network and the degree of insidership in the network.

The paper empirically discriminates different types of international experience derived from theory and examines their relationship with the degree of firm insidership in newly opened business networks.

Theoretically this paper advances internationalization process theory by developing its network aspect as well as discriminating different experience types and their role in predicting network insidership in newly opened business networks.

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 purpose of this paper is to create a new research direction within the domain of firms’ strategic orientations.

Based on data from Swedish multinational corporations (MNCs), this paper identifies types, i.e. configurations, of strategic orientations involving the components of entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation, and examines relationships with performance in foreign markets. Cluster analysis identifies types, and linear regression analysis examines relationships with performance in foreign markets.

Four types of orientations were found: conservative; entrepreneurial; maximizing; and irresolute. Furthermore, it was found that the relationship with performance in foreign markets is most positive for the maximizing followed by the conservative and irresolute.

First, it is established that entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation do not operate in isolation but are mutually supportive. Second, by establishing that type of orientations makes a difference for performance, this paper goes beyond the predominant view saying that just degrees matter. Third, the findings contribute to resource-advantage theory by establishing that competitive advantage results from resources being complementary in nature.

Instead of solely relying only on entrepreneurial orientation, or market orientation, corporations are advised to carefully evaluate their configuration of orientations. The evaluation is decisive because it cites implications for performance.

The study contributes to the literature on strategic orientation in a unique way as it captures performance implications stemming from types of strategic orientations.