The authors analyze the effect of conditional mediation of global mindset (GM) -entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) in the international entrepreneurial intention (IEI) of small and medium enterprises (SMEs)' entrepreneurs in Brazil. They collected the data from 794 entrepreneurs and used the partial least square method to test the hypotheses and analyze the mediating and direct effects. The effect of the IEI on the international entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) of SMEs' entrepreneurs in Brazil improves with the mediation of the ESE and the moderation of the GM. The authors suggest more empirical and longitudinal analyses to extend the literature on IEI as well as future studies that lead to the generalizability of our results. Finally, they think that similar studies with different sample groups may be of interest. These findings may encourage would-be international entrepreneurs and vocational trainers on IE to consider the critical effect of ESE and GM on their future business activities.
Top1. Introduction
International entrepreneurship (IE) is a new research domain that is increasingly studied to understand the different international dimensions of entrepreneurship (Oviatt and McDougall, 1994, 2005; Krueger et al., 2000; Jones and Coviello, 2005; Kolvereid and Isaksen, 2006; Korsakienė and Tvaronavičienė, 2012; Olejnik and Swoboda, 2012; Felício et al., 2016). Coviello et al. (2011) and Oviatt and McDougall (2005) defined IE as the discovery, enactment, evaluation and exploitation of opportunities abroad the national borders to create and capture value. Previous IE research investigated different elements that have significant effect on IE behavior (Freeman and Cavusgil, 2007; Nummela et al.,2004) as situational factors, education and experience and demographic variables (Jafari Sadeghi et al., 2019; Jafari Sadeghi, 2020).
Hamelin (2013) argued that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are different in international entrepreneurship growth. Sapienza et al. (2006) and Zahra et al. (2005) advised SMEs’ entrepreneurs who intend to go international to understand the uncertain, risky, different and new market that is different from their domestic market. Siepel et al. (2019), Wright et al. (2007) and Cardoza and Fornes (2011) demonstrated that the performance of international entrepreneurship of SMEs is positively influenced by individuals’ human capital and social capital as cross-cultural knowledge, attitude towards uncertainty, behavior towards diversity of culture and values. However, we believe that more IE studies are needed to understand the psychological and behavioral aspects of individuals in this process (Jones et al., 2011; Handrito et al., 2020). Authors confirmed that behaviors, motivations and perceptions of entrepreneurs in the international entrepreneurship process of SMEs are different than those demonstrated in others (Kiss et al., 2013). Thus, we put central the SMEs’ entrepreneurs in Brazil for a better understanding of the international entrepreneurship of these firms.
Entrepreneurship is a complex process that includes entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial orientation. An individual demonstrates an entrepreneurial intention when assuming that he has a plan, intends and will try to take steps to start a business in the future (Kautonen et al., 2015). However, individuals with entrepreneurial orientation have a psychological and cognitive profile which includes proactive, risky and innovative behaviors to take an action in the entrepreneurial process (Kropp et al., 2006) even without the existence of an entrepreneurial intention. Our first research question is: Does the international individual entrepreneurial intention (IEI) influence the international individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) of entrepreneurs of SMEs in Brazil?
Rauch et al. (2009), Wales et al. (2011) and Covin and Miller (2014) confirmed the scarcity on the studies of entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial orientation on the individual level and advised to expand the research on investigating the factors that may mediate or moderate the entrepreneurial intention. We study here the influence of entrepreneurial self-efficacy ESE which many studies demonstrated its relevance for businesses on competitive environment (Khedhaouria et al., 2014).