SMEs' regional diversification: dynamic patterns and home market institutional determinants
International Marketing Review
ISSN: 0265-1335
Article publication date: 14 November 2023
Issue publication date: 10 April 2024
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Originality/value
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.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Wensong Bai acknowledges financial support from the Guangdong Province’s 14th Five-Year Plan for Philosophy and Social Sciences’ 2022 Discipline Co-Construction Project (GD22XGL58), Guangdong Provincial Ordinary University Innovation Team Project (2022WCXTD022) and Characteristics Innovation Project (2022WTSCX123), and the Stable Support Plan Funding Project for Higher Education Institutions in Shenzhen in 2022.
Since submission of this article, the following author(s) have updated their affiliation(s): Martin Johanson is at the Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Corrigendum: It has come to the attention of the publisher that the article, Bai, W., Hilmersson, M., Johanson, M. and Oliveira, L. (2023), “SMEs’ regional diversification: dynamic patterns and home market institutional determinants”, International Marketing Review, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMR-12-2021-0364, was published with incorrect affiliation details for Dr Bai, which were missed by the authors during production of the paper. Dr Bai’s affiliation has now been amended in the text from: Department of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Investment Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China; School of Technology and Business Studies, Dalarna University, Falun, Sweden and Department of Business Studies, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, to: Faculty of Economics, Shenzhen MSU-BIT University, Shenzhen, China. The authors sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Citation
Bai, W., Hilmersson, M., Johanson, M. and Oliveira, L. (2024), "SMEs' regional diversification: dynamic patterns and home market institutional determinants", International Marketing Review, Vol. 41 No. 2, pp. 358-385. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMR-12-2021-0364
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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