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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 study aims to investigate the relationship between absorptive capacity, relational capital and interorganizational relationship performance and examine the moderating effect of contractual governance on this relationship.

This study used a quantitative design, analyzing data collected through a survey questionnaire. The sampling frame consisted of 111 cross-industry, small and medium-sized manufacturers in Malaysia. The research model was analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results show that interorganizational relationship performance is positively influenced by relational capital and absorptive capacity. While absorptive capacity has a positive effect on relational capital, this study finds empirical evidence that contractual governance weakens the effect of absorptive capacity on relational capital. Furthermore, this study also examines the hitherto under-researched moderating effect of contractual government on absorptive capacity and relational capital and their relationship with interorganizational relationship performance.

This study provides insights into the interorganizational relationship among SMEs and explains the nature of knowledge management in this context. This study shows the potential role of absorptive capacity in building close cross-border interorganizational relationships.

Despite the wide research and discussion on international performance, innovation and digital resilience dimensions of enterprises, the investigation and understanding of their interrelations seem to be limited. The purpose of this study is to identify the influential factors affecting the mentioned dimensions, determine the causal relationships among these identified factors and finally evaluate their importance in an aggregated framework from the viewpoint of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

A hybrid methodology is used to achieve the objectives. First, the main factors of international performance, innovation and digital resilience are extracted by an in-depth review of the literature. These factors are then screened by expert opinions to localize them in accordance with the conditions of an emerging economy. Finally, the relationship and the importance of the factors are determined using an uncertain multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach.

The findings reveal that there is a correlation between digital resilience and innovation, and both factors have an impact on the international performance of SMEs. The cause-or-effect nature of the factors belonging to each dimension is also determined. Among the effect factors, business model innovation (BMI), agility, product and organizational innovation are known as the most important factors. International knowledge, personal drivers and digital transformation are also determined to be the most important cause factors.

This study extends the literature both in methodological and practical directions. Practically, the study aggregates the factors in the mentioned dimensions and provides insights into their cause-and-effect interrelations. Methodologically, the study proposes an uncertain MCDM approach that has been rarely used in previous studies in this field.

This study aimed to explore the antecedents of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) internationalization and to compare the different resources required to enter different geographical regions. This study adds to the discussion on internationalization from a resource-based view (RBV) and a focus on dynamic capability, especially the linkage with resources such as digital capability, domestic industrial networks and the business-to-business (B2B) model.

This study used secondary data collected by an SME association in 2020, using a logistic regression model to examine the hypotheses. The respondents were selected according to stratified random sampling.

Digital capability and the B2B model significantly and positively affect the likelihood of internationalization by SMEs, while domestic industrial networks were negatively correlated with this process. In addition, Taiwanese SMEs with high digital capability tend to expand to North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, Oceania and the Middle East. Smaller firms tend to develop in Southeast Asia, whereas larger firms opt to establish business in Oceania.

A research limitation is the generalizability of the sample. Findings could be enhanced if future studies include more industries and draw comparisons among different industries or countries. Future studies could explore digital entrepreneurship from a global perspective.

Managers need to emphasize better the development of digital capabilities and skills for SMEs. With limited financial resources and workforce, SMEs can strengthen the competence in international markets by adopting a suitable business model. When SMEs join an association to expand SMEs foreign networks, the study suggests that SMEs carefully evaluate the characteristics of each industrial association first, given that some associations are domestic-oriented. As for public policymakers, a project grant can be used to provide digital capability training for SME employees and owners or promote building a B2B model when internationalizing.

The authors' findings fill the research gaps in RBVs of internationalization, especially in linking resources such as digital capability, domestic industrial networks and the B2B model. The outcomes of this research serve as a reference not only to policymakers for improving the current SME ecosystem, but also to business practitioners positioning themselves in this system.

This study seeks to explore the relationship between performance relative to aspiration and SMEs' internationalization speed, and moderating effects of top management's policy knowledge and institutional distance between the above relation.

This study tests the authors’ hypotheses using data on Chinese manufacturing SMEs over a 5-year period from 2013 to 2017. The authors leverage archival panel data on publicly listed companies on the SME Board, GEM and New OTC Market in the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. The authors then collected data from the WIND and ZEPHYR databases.

The results confirm a U-shaped relation between performance relative to aspiration and SMEs' internationalization speed, and show that this relation is steepening by top management's policy knowledge in home country but flattening by institutional distance as environmental dynamics.

The study findings contribute to the international business field by exploring how a firm's risk situation in internationalization can change, thereby influencing SMEs' international expansion.

Digital technologies over time are becoming increasingly pervasive and relatively affordable, finding a large diffusion in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) also for internationalization purposes. However, less is known about the specific mechanisms by which this can be achieved. Specifically, we focus on how SMEs can face the international environment, leveraging digital technologies and thanks to their intellectual capital (IC).

We analyze the relationship between digital technologies and the internationalization of SMEs, exploring the mediating role of IC in its three dimensions: human, relational and innovation capital, and assessing the possible moderating effects posed by international institutional conditions, specifically the Sino-US trade frictions. The relationships are tested using a sample of companies listed on China’s A-share Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) from 2010 to 2021.

Digital technologies help to internationalize SMEs. However, this positive relationship is affected (mediated) by the presence of an already consolidated IC. In addition, the institutional conditions of the international market, such as the Sino-US trade friction, moderate the components of IC differently. Specifically, the overall mediating effect of human and relational capital is boosted, while this does not happen for innovation capital.

First, this study contributes to the literature on organizational resilience, especially digital resilience, confirming its validity in the context of internationalization and, in particular, those processes adopted by SMEs. Second, we clarify the mechanisms through which digital technologies exert their impact on the process of internationalization and in particular the prominent necessity of having IC. Third, our conclusions enrich the understanding of how IC components react to turbulence in international markets.

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.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use networks to overcome knowledge deficiencies in pursuing innovation. However, balancing the cost and risk of growing networks, especially internationally, with potential gains in knowledge remains a critical challenge. Searching for innovation knowledge in international and domestic networks can be complementary when learning is compressed or as competing when the SMEs capacity to use the new knowledge is exceeded. This paper aims to investigate whether knowledge searches in domestic and international networks are complementary or conflicting in pursuit of innovation.

This study is based on firm-level data set comprising 426 SMEs located in New Zealand, an advanced small and open economy. Using multi-level modelling, this study tests competing hypotheses, asking whether domestic and international network searches are complements or substitutes when seeking ambidexterity.

The research finds that, in contrast to earlier research, which shows increasing network breadth drives innovation activity, SMEs benefit less from knowledge search across combined domestic and international networks for exploration innovation and ambidexterity. In contrast, exploitation shows no effect, suggesting that combined networks could support exploitation.

This paper highlights how SMEs mitigate the influence resource constraints have on the partnerships they form and how this translates to ambidexterity. Specifically, recognising that an opportunistic approach to network development may impose future constraints on SME ambidexterity. From a management perspective, the paper recognises that balancing knowledge search across domestic and international networks can facilitate ambidexterity; however, to prevent spreading resources too thinly, this likely requires exit from early domestic innovation network partnerships.

This paper reviews the literature on the business models of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It seeks to examine the profile, conceptual and intellectual structure of the literature whilst leveraging the findings to suggest promising future paths to advance our knowledge on business models of SMEs.

The study resorts to a systematic literature review that conducts descriptive, bibliometric (i.e. co-word occurrence analysis and bibliographic coupling of documents analysis) and content analyses to review the literature on business models of SMEs. The research protocol included 301 articles collected in the Web of Science (WoS) database in the descriptive and bibliometric analyses. The bibliometric analysis was performed using the VOSviewer software.

The descriptive analysis portrayed the profile of this research stream. The systematisation of the co-word occurrence analysis describes the four clusters that comprise the conceptual structure of this research field. The content analysis of the bibliographic coupling of documents’ clusters portrays the seven clusters that involve the intellectual structure of this research area.

The integrated and holistic approach adopted in this study provides a detailed overview of the literature on business models of SMEs. We propose an integrative framework for the literature that bridges the main themes that form the conceptual and intellectual structure of this field of research. A comprehensive agenda for future research is suggested and implications for theory, policy and practice are stated.

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.