Revisiting models of internationalization: Pre‐export phase and lateral rigidity of emerging market Small and Medium Enterprises

The purpose of this paper is to revisit theories of internationalization and explore their export commencement processes from emerging market lenses. The paper combines the two important concepts, the pre-export phase and lateral rigidity to deliberate the internationalization phenomenon of SMEs. The paper draws on extant literature on the SME internationalization process and applies qualitative methods to provide deep insights into the pre-export phase. The study uses four longitudinal context-based case studies based at India for generalization. The conceptualization and findings show that SMEs in emerging markets require processes and innovations from a strategic and planning perspective. Emerging market SMEs require a combination of resource-building in the pre-export phase and the right stimuli to overcome lateral rigidity to start internationalization. This paper addresses the phase before internationalization and the concept of lateral rigidity to provide a holistic view of SME internationalization from the emerging country's perspective.