International environmental opportunity virtuous cycle: the role of the actors in the internationalization support ecosystem

Purpose Addressing grand challenges involves pursuing international environmental opportunities. This paper aims to explore how discovered and created international environmental opportunities enable one another and how actors in the internationalization support ecosystem facilitate this process. Design/methodology/approach Relying on a qualitative study among 30 respondents involving green SMEs and actors in the internationalization support ecosystem, this article contributes to the duality view of the opportunities through extending existing models. Findings The results show that international environmental opportunities are discovered and created at the market, partnership and contract levels and that the virtuous cycle of opportunity enablement functions at all levels. The findings provide evidence of the involvement of the actors in the internationalization support ecosystem in the discovery and creation of international environmental opportunities at the contract, partnership and market levels and in facilitating the enablement process. Originality/value This study contributes to international entrepreneurship and the duality view of opportunities by clarifying how international environmental opportunities can be discovered and created and how this enablement process is facilitated to advance the ecological transition.