The Path to SME global performance: Knowledge support, confidence, and global growth
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often face a difficult path when they expand beyond their home market. They must make decisions about unfamiliar customers, competitors, regulations, technologies, and business practices while working with fewer resources than larger firms. Governments and public agencies often provide support to help SMEs internationalize, but this study shows that such support does not, by itself, create value. What matters is how SME owner-managers perceive that support and whether they see it as relevant to their international growth.
Based on a study of 121 French SMEs, this research examines how perceived institutional support shapes SME internationalization and global performance. The study focuses on two types of support: knowledge-based support, such as technological information, market knowledge, training, advice, and guidance; and financial-based support, such as subsidies, tax reductions, loans, and financing programs.
The findings show that when owner-managers perceive knowledge-based support as accessible, useful, and sufficient for their internationalization needs, they develop stronger entrepreneurial self-efficacy, or greater confidence in their ability to identify opportunities, mobilize resources, and act entrepreneurially. This confidence helps firms develop an international entrepreneurial orientation. In practical terms, these firms become more willing to innovate, act proactively, and take calculated risks in foreign markets. Over time, this entrepreneurial behavior supports stronger international performance.
The study also shows that perceived financial support does not produce the same benefits. Financial support alone does not automatically improve SMEs’ performance abroad and may even weaken the relationship between entrepreneurial behavior and international performance. This suggests that while money can matter, it is not enough. For SMEs, global success depends on whether institutional support helps owner-managers build knowledge, confidence, and strategic action.
Cherchem, N., Clark D., & Wales, W. (2026). The path to SME global performance: Entrepreneurial self-efficacy, perceived institutional support, and international entrepreneurial orientation (external link, opens in new window) . Journal of World Business, 61(4), 101726.