Resilient growth in international entrepreneurship

Abstract

International entrepreneurship is the pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities across national borders (Reuber et al., 2018), behaviourally a combination of innovative, proactive and risk-seeking behaviours that crosses national borders and is intended to create value in organizations (McDougall & Oviatt, 2000). Agile and resilient entrepreneurial firms and individuals are able to take advantage of their international entrepreneurial orientation and find international opportunities even in times of global uncertainty, such as the COVID-19 pandemic conditions (Torkkeli, 2021a; Torkkeli, 2021b ; Zahra, 2020a). In such environments characterized by high volatility and uncertainty, the role of entrepreneurial resilience (Bullough et al., 2014; Bullough & Renko, 2013) can differentiate between survival and failure of enterprises, and the speed with which international new ventures can learn can determine their growth and survival in the long term (Zahra, 2020a). The uncertainty brought on by crises and external shocks also presents opportunities to firms for digitalization and business model change (Seetharaman, 2020), provided that they are resilient enough to seize those opportunities and have the self-efficacy needed to cope with the uncertainty (Torkkeli et al., 2021). While internationalization is a risky process, it can also be a risk diversification strategy for small entrepreneurial firms (Saarenketo et al., 2022). Having an international outlook and orientation are crucial for them to develop resilience needed for international growth (Boso et al., 2017). It is with this backdrop that the present special issue in Small Enterprise Research focusing on resilient growth in international entrepreneurship is published. The collection of articles in this special issue shed light on how resilience and growth are manifested and interlinked in international entrepreneurship during times of uncertainty and political turbulence (cf. Zahra, 2020b; Zahra, 2022). The five empirical studies comprising the special issue address the concepts on resilience and growth in international entrepreneurship from several theoretical perspectives, units of analysis and through a diverse set of country contexts.