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The purpose of this study is to examine the subnational regional dimension of exports by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in India, one of the prominent emerging economies or “rising powers”.

To understand the forces driving the variation in subnational region’s share in international business of rising power SMEs, an analytical conceptual framework on regional export advantage (REA) was formulated based on the review of relevant theoretical and empirical literature. The model was estimated for Indian states using the most appropriate and recently developed econometric technique of fractional logit model.

The paper provides evidence that the emergence of exports by rising Indian power SMEs is geographically limited to a few select regions/states. Southern Indian states alone accounted for half of exports from SMEs in the organized manufacturing sector during 2000-2008, followed by Western India. The REA analysis has brought to the fore that regional stock of technological knowledge, availability of skill, port facilities, urban areas and foreign direct investment stocks are crucial factors determining states’ share in SME exports across technological subcategories. However, the size and sophistication of local demand continue to influence states’ efforts at enhancing exports by SMEs, at least those belonging to the medium- and high-technology categories.

The proposed empirical framework could be extended to include institutional and political economy factors. Its application to subnational regional shares in total exports by all firms taking into account fixed effects for regions may be another feasible line of future research.

Empirical findings recognize that appropriate strategies by subnational policymakers are important for a region to achieve a higher contribution in national SME exports. Subnational policy measures aimed at upgradation of regional technological assets and skill base through the promotion of technology clusters and R & D of local firms, facilitation and creation of better industry-university linkages and investments in education and training institution may help the states to gain higher export advantage.

This paper provides new analytics and insights into the role of subnational spaces in the internationalization of rising power SMEs from India and serves to contribute to the extant international business research that is predominantly occupied with “nation” as the unit of location.

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.

This paper aims to investigate the difference between the impacts of indicators of trade barriers (TBs) on bankrupt enterprises (BEs), new enterprises (NEs) and other enterprises (OEs).

The paper has used a multiple-step approach. At the first stage, the initial data has been collected from interviews with 164 top managers of SMEs in West Azerbaijan in Iran during two periods of 2013–2015 and 2017–2019. At the second step, multiple correspondence analysis has been used to summarize the relationships between variables and construct indices for different groups of TBs. Finally, the generalized structural equation model method was used to examine the impact of export barriers.

The results showed that the political legal index is the main TBs for BEs and NEs, but it had a more significant impact on BEs; the financial index was the second major TBs factor for BEs, while OEs did not have a problem in performance index, and the financial index was classified as a minor obstacle for them. All indicators of marketing barriers (except production index) had a negative and significant effect on all enterprises; the most important TBs for NEs was the information index.

The results indicated that if enterprises have a strong financial system and function, they can lessen the impact of sanctions and keep themselves in the market.

The nature of international markets and the challenges with respect to the competitiveness of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) makes it imperative to examine government support. This study aims to assess the role and effectiveness of government and the export promotion agencies in supporting exports by non-traditional horticultural SMEs in Ghana.

The study used a qualitative research design, which involved semi-structured interviews with senior managers of six export facilitating institutions to gain an understanding of the services offered to SMEs with respect to exports of non-traditional horticultural products.

The findings reveal inadequate cost-efficient sources of non-traditional horticultural export financing for SMEs. This is a hindrance to the international competitiveness of exporting SMEs in developing countries such as Ghana. In addition, effective and coordinated support from export promotion agencies was found to be critical.

The study highlights the importance of government’s role in policymaking and implementation of export-led programmes for horticultural exporting firms in Ghana. Despite their strategic importance, this area of research has not attracted the attention of researchers, with little or no information on the horticultural international competitiveness of non-traditional horticultural products.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of governance – a proxy for network effects on small and medium enterprises (SME) growth through access to new markets. Specifically, investigate how export intensity (EI) and performance are affected. This study also tests related theories, given the growth in the post-liberalization setting of a developing economy. Specifically, this study tests Uppsala and born global (BG) perspectives for internationalization and resource-based view for performance.

The authors collect secondary data for each SME over a 20 year period from a growth-oriented developing economy – India. This period is after the liberalization of the Indian economy. Thus, the authors test the hypotheses in this context. The authors expect that exports would surge for SMEs given the governance structures considered. The authors consider several governance modes and two types of product classifications, namely, products and services.

The authors find conditional support for the two models – indicating that governance structures do not consistently support finding new markets. Further, given the governance structure, EI is not consistently a means to improved performance. This is contrary to the expectations. However, at the same time, the authors do find evidence that governance matters and affects products and services differently.

While the authors conduct research in India which has a variety of cultures and state policies, the authors still believe comparative study with multi-country data from developing countries might bring further insights. Further, primary data would also help to understand governance and motivational effects (the authors did not consider the later). Implications: The authors believe the research will have implications for policy since the authors find effects of governance. Hence, specific policies that improve the performance of a governance type could be adopted.

Although SMEs are affected by many factors, the authors find significant effects for important variables. Hence, the authors believe the government could use the study to design proper policies so that new markets could be discovered through different governance forms, through strategic investment and capacity building.

SMEs are a key part of the social fabric of a society/country. The work deals with how SMEs could be helped. Hence, the authors believe the work has important implications for society. Further, as the work deals with large firm-SME interfaces, the authors also inform how these different governance structures are performing and where attention is needed.

The authors find that certain governance-type and SME-type work well together. Further, networks through the governance structures help find new markets – depending on SME-type. The authors find partial support for the Uppsala model and also for the BG model, again depending on the SME-type.

Based on an institutional approach to explaining firms’ internationalisation, this paper aims to empirically investigate the role of Export Promotion Programmes (EPPs) in moderating the influence of export barriers perceptions on small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) propensity to export.

The study uses evidence from Algeria, the largest North-African country. The data were collected using an online questionnaire, targeting SMEs operating in the manufacturing sector. The study considers the influence of procedural, informational, environmental and functional barriers on export propensity, to uncover the moderating role of trade missions, trade shows and export seminars and workshops on such relationships. To examine these links, five main hypotheses are proposed and tested through a non-linear partial least squares structural equation modelling on a sample of 128 Algerian SMEs.

The results show that while internal barriers decrease firms’ export propensity, EPPs including trade fairs and shows may independently pose either a positive or negative influence on such relationships.

The study confirms the applicability of the institutional perspective to explaining firms’ internationalisation. More importantly, the present study highlights the role of EPPs in moderating the influence of export barriers perceptions on SMEs’ international market entry, a role neglected by the extant empirical literature.

The current findings hold important implications to export promotion organisations operating in African countries. Notably, the results reveal that some programmes could have a negative influence if they are not delivered appropriately.

This study offers a rare focus on the moderating role of EPPs in the relationship between export barriers and export propensity, within the setting of a North-African country.

The purpose of this paper is to provide directions for advancing the research on determinants of outward foreign direct investment (FDI) from India.

The paper uses literature review as a method to identify a research gap in the literature on internationalization of Indian firms.

The synthesis of the theoretical debate and empirical studies conducted in context of EMNEs, with a particular focus on India and preliminary examination of data on cross-border acquisitions as well as institutions in India lead us to argue for the consideration of institutions at sub-national level (Indian states) in examining the determinants of outward FDI from India. The paper also proposes a conceptual framework relating to the mechanism through which institutions at the state level in India affect the propensity of firms to invest overseas.

Since the propositions are not tested empirically, the paper does not provide conclusive results.

In addition to providing the synthesis of the theoretical debate and empirical studies, paper is, to the best of author’s knowledge, the first one to present a conceptual framework relating institutions at sub-national level with the outward foreign direct investment from India.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether subnational market-supporting institutions in Indian states affect the likelihood of Indian multinational enterprises (MNEs) to undertake acquisitions in advanced economies (AEs) rather than emerging economies (EEs) and, if so, which mechanism – institutional fostering or escapism – underlies the phenomenon.

The paper uses a logistic regression model on a dataset of 647 firm-level cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) undertaken by Indian MNEs during the period 2010–2016.

The paper finds support for the institutional escapism mechanism, as opposed to the institutional fostering mechanism, underlying Indian MNEs’ acquisitions in AEs (rather than EEs). That is, firms headquartered in Indian states where market-supporting institutions (such as economic liberalization and efficiency of legal systems) are weak are more likely to undertake CBAs in AEs than in EEs as an escapist response to weak subnational institutions at home.

The paper highlights the relevance of the mainstream international business (IB) concept of emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) internationalization to critical IB scholarship by examining subnational institutional influences on EMNEs’ foreign market choice between AEs and EEs. In particular, by providing evidence for the institutional escapism mechanism which has potential negative socioeconomic consequences in the region of the investing firm, the paper adds to critical IB research which places great emphasis on the examination of inequalities and draws attention to the EMNE context as a suitable setting for further research on internationalization from a critical perspective.

Energy and environment has gained traction within the field of entrepreneurship literature, but a comprehensive empirical study that examines the relationship between the cost of energy and small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) innovation is an omission. Therefore, this novel study aims to examine the relationship between the cost of energy and SMEs innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by first examining the differential impact of the various generation sources on the price of electric energy. This research has enabled us to investigate and understand the transmission mechanism of increasing/decreasing electricity price on innovation decisions and activities of SMEs in SSA.

Using quantitative approach, with the data from the World Bank Enterprise and Innovation Follow-up Surveys, the study utilises a Tobit model to test whether the generation mix (renewable and non-renewable generation sources) increases or decreases electricity prices and examine the impact of the cost of electric energy on SMEs innovation in SSA.

The findings of this study shows that the cost of electricity affects negatively on SMEs innovation decision and activities of SMEs in SSA. The impact of renewables on the price of electricity has a larger magnitude relative to that of non-renewables. This finding has implications for policy makers promoting renewable energy without a policy design to tackle the unintended price effect of promoting renewable energy.

This is the first study to introduce cost of energy into an innovation model and to empirically examine the role of cost of energy for innovation activities of SMEs in SSA. Further, it examines the sources of generation on electricity price in SSA. The study contributes towards the empirical literature, and the findings also have implication for policy makers regarding the unintended consequences of promoting the transition to low-carbon electricity generation sources on SMEs via the cost of doing business implication.