Navigating institutional terrains: home-country institutional agent boundary spanning and brokerage in SME B2B internationalization

Purpose Grounded in the theoretical foundations of institutions, boundary spanning and brokerage and SME internationalization, the purpose of this paper is to examine how home-country institutions (HCIs) facilitate the post-entry internationalization of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) through home-country institutional agents (HCIAs) in a business-to-business (B2B) context. The authors seek to explore how HCIs influence post-entry SME internationalization through the boundary spanning and brokerage activities of the agents that represent them. Design/methodology/approach The authors present a qualitative study exploring the boundary spanning and brokerage activities of HCIAs located in both the home and host country using 100 in-depth, semi-structured, elite informant interviews. This study explores how HCIAs influence the type and nature of institutional support for post-entry internationalization of SMEs from the home country of New Zealand to the two large emerging host markets, China and India. They offer a novel perspective by investigating the role of HCIAs, representing institutions at the micro level and operating in both home and host country, in supporting the internationalization of SMEs. Findings The findings of this study demonstrate that HCIAs, working in both home and host country locations, assume boundary spanning and brokerage roles when connecting SMEs with relevant actors to supply the requisite knowledge for successful post-entry internationalization. Key findings highlight how specific HCIAs, representing a range of HCIs, facilitate institutional support to SMEs in their post-entry development. This study explores the mechanism of boundary spanning and brokerage used by these agents in connecting relevant actors involved in the internationalization of SMEs from New Zealand to China and India. This study demonstrates how specific HCIA types, different boundary spanning activities and the home or host country location of the agents of the HCIs facilitate this process. Originality/value The authors offer a novel micro-level examination of institutional support for SME internationalization, focusing on the activities of specific agents representing their respective HCIs. This study shows that these HCIAs use boundary-spanning and brokerage activities to connect and facilitate key interactions between SMEs and relevant actors in the host market. Further, the authors highlight the little explored roles and activities of HCIs located in the host market in the context of SME internationalization. Specifically, they show different contributions by home and host-based institutional agents and differentiate between the types of boundary spanning objects used and the associated outcomes for the SMEs. The originality of the findings of this study is evident in their contributions to the institutional, boundary spanning and brokerage and SME internationalization theoretical domains.