Leading with vision or vanity? Strategic leadership, digitalisation, team capabilities and the dark side of CEO narcissism in SME international growth

Purpose This study aims to examine how chief executive officer (CEO) strategic leadership drives international corporate entrepreneurship (ICE) in business-to-business (B2B) small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in relationship-dependent industrial markets. It investigates degree of digitalisation (DoD), team managerial cognition (TMC) and Team entrepreneurial alertness (TEA) as key mediating mechanisms and assesses how CEO narcissism disrupts these pathways that are critical for cross-border buyer engagement and partnership development. Design/methodology/approach Survey data from 248 B2B SMEs and 496 middle managers in Vietnam were analysed using Covariance-based structural equation modelling, Hayes’s PROCESS and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. Findings DoD partially mediates the effect of CEO strategic leadership on ICE by enabling customer relationship management and cross-border coordination with industrial buyers. TMC and TEA further translate leadership intent into international market expansion by facilitating the interpretation of foreign buyer requirements and the recognition of partnership opportunities. However, these team-level mechanisms weaken substantially under narcissistic leadership. Configurational results reveal multiple equifinal pathways to high ICE, while consistently indicating that CEO narcissism undermines B2B international marketing effectiveness by disrupting collaborative sensemaking and trust-based relationship development essential for industrial market success. Practical implications For B2B marketing managers, the findings highlight the importance of structuring digital investments towards relationship-oriented international marketing strategies, institutionalising team-based processes for interpreting heterogeneous industrial buyer needs and implementing governance mechanisms that counterbalance narcissistic leadership tendencies that threaten collaborative customer engagement across borders. Originality/value By integrating a leadership-driven orchestration framework, this study advances B2B international marketing research by showing how leadership-driven resource orchestration – through structuring digital capabilities, bundling TMC and mobilising TEA – enables industrial SMEs to build and sustain cross-border buyer relationships under conditions of resource constraints and institutional distance.