Firm-level study of the drivers of internationalization of small- and medium-scale enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa

The last 3 decades have witnessed an unprecedented amount of studies on the drivers of internationalization among small- and medium-sized enterprises particularly in developed countries. However, the emergence of firms from African countries creates a need to study their drivers of internationalization process since they may not be necessarily the same with those of developed countries. Employing multi-theoretical approach and robust measures of SMEs’ internationalization, the study investigates the major factors that drive SMEs’ internationalization in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The study uses fixed-effect Tobit and Probit models to analyze a longitudinal dataset constructed using World Bank’s Enterprise panel datasets for 40 Sub-Saharan African countries. The findings suggest that firm’s size and email/website communication are the common factors driving SMEs’ internationalization across all the sub-regions in SSA. The findings also reveal that firm’s age, capital intensity, market power, and general manager’s experience are the additional drivers of SMEs’ internationalization in Central Africa. On the contrarily, firm’s age, access to finance, general manager’s educational level, R&D, and corruption are the additional drivers in Western Africa whereas market power and general manager’s experience are the additional factors in Southern Africa. One of the recommendations is that enhancing the availability of resources and access to information should be one of the focuses of business reforms in SSA, and each sub-region should leverage on its peculiar factors to drive SMEs’ internationalization in SSA.