Lessons for Emerging Markets from Small Islands: A Research Agenda

Over the past decades, practitioners in emerging and transition economies have greatly benefited from the expanding body of research on International Entrepreneurship. This body of work has helped businesses in non-traditional markets overcome barriers to internationalization and access global opportunities. However, the experience of small islands highlights a new, critical layer of understanding that remains largely untapped and offers valuable lessons for these economies. Islands, despite being small in size and numerous in number, are not simply scaled-down versions of larger states. Their economic, social, and geographic realities set them apart in profound ways. Island studies have revealed that islands operate under conditions of persistent vulnerability: they are often remote, highly exposed to external economic and environmental shocks, dependent on limited resources, and isolated from major markets. These factors create challenges that go beyond those typically encountered in emerging economies, demanding unique entrepreneurial responses. Rather than viewing these characteristics as disadvantages, island-based entrepreneurs often turn them into catalysts for innovation. Their businesses excel in flexibility, resourcefulness, and niche market creation—skills that are increasingly crucial for firms in any emerging or transitioning context. Islands thus serve as natural laboratories for studying resilience, adaptability, and international opportunity-seeking under conditions of scarcity. Moreover, while the private sectors of small islands have largely been overlooked in both mainstream entrepreneurship research and within island studies themselves, they hold valuable insights into how firms can thrive despite systemic limitations. Island-based Firms (IBFs) offer examples of how firms can internationalize not because of a large home market but despite its absence—often targeting global niches from the outset. For practitioners in emerging markets, studying the strategies and survival mechanisms of IBFs can illuminate new pathways to growth, including how to: internationalize early and leverage diaspora connections, innovate within highly constrained local economies, build resilience to external shocks through diversification and flexibility, develop regional and global niche specializations; and operate with a heightened sensitivity to sustainability and systemic risks. This research agenda, therefore, introduces islands as novel, strategic markets for both scholars and practitioners. It challenges conventional frameworks of entrepreneurship and internationalization, identifies a new gap in the literature, and outlines key future research themes. Ultimately, small islands demonstrate that even the most constrained environments can be fertile ground for international entrepreneurship—and that the lessons they offer are increasingly relevant for emerging markets navigating an uncertain global future.