The Impact of Environmental Orientation and Cooperative Internationalization on the Use of Internationalization Support

ABSTRACT Fostering the ecological transition requires understanding how environmentally oriented SMEs internationalize. Drawing on sustainable entrepreneurship and the resource‐based view, this study examines how environmental orientation (EO) shapes the use of internationalization support and cooperative internationalization. Using structural equation modeling on a sample of 164 French SMEs, we show that EO increases reliance on institutional support but has no direct effect on informational or operational support. Instead, cooperation acts as a central mechanism: it fully mediates the relationship between EO and informational and operational support and partially mediates institutional support. These findings indicate that EO primarily influences internationalization through relational resource mobilization rather than direct resource needs. The study contributes by integrating sustainable entrepreneurship and the resource‐based view and by highlighting cooperation as a key mechanism linking EO to resource access. Implications suggest that internationalization support should be tailored to legitimacy needs and cooperative strategies of SMEs.