The path to SME global performance: Entrepreneurial self-efficacy, perceived institutional support, and international entrepreneurial orientation

Home-country institutions provide support to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), as they face a challenging path to internationalization success due to the liabilities of foreignness and smallness. Current models of SME internationalization have entrepreneurial self-efficacy at the individual-level and international entrepreneurial orientation at the firm-level as critical success intermediaries; however, the role of institutional support with regard to these intermediaries is unknown. To this end, we propose and test an institution-driven cognition model; we examine both subjective and objective time-lagged observations from 121 owner-managers of internationalizing French SMEs. We theorize and observe managerial perceptions regarding the availability of knowledge- and financial-based institutional support as critical components within the model of internationalization success. Our findings offer novel contributions to the cognitive and micro-foundation of SME internationalization by demonstrating the unique role of perceptions of institutional support, as opposed to objective tangible gains from institutional support, within the cognition of SME owners, with notable implications for theory, practice, and policy.