Micro-foundations of small business internationalization: introduction to the Special Section

Abstract

Purpose

We introduce and summarize the selected papers of the Special Section on the “Micro-Foundations of Small Business Internationalization and briefly summarize the state-of-the-art of this literature stream.

Design/methodology/approach

We briefly summarize the state-of-the-art of the literature regarding the micro-foundations of small business internationalization. Then, we summarize the selected papers of the Special Section, highlighting their main contributions. We end with suggesting future research avenues.

Findings

We move beyond the usual suspects such as gender, education and experience to bring together internationalization studies that open up the individual lens to small business internationalization. To do so, we selected papers examining deeper-level behavioural and psychological constructs impacting the internationalization process, going from internationalization intention to internationalization behaviour and eventually leading to internationalization performance.

Originality/value

We stress the importance of the entrepreneur as a person to better understand small business internationalization. We address the current lack of attention attributed to psychological and behavioural drivers (e.g. motives, attitudes, ambitions and aspirations) throughout the internationalization process, and we urge future researchers to further develop this research stream.

Citation

Vanderstraeten, J., Loots, E., Hamelin, A. and van Witteloostuijn, A. (2020), "Micro-foundations of small business internationalization: introduction to the Special Section", Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 265-283. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCSM-04-2020-0100