International involvement of established SMEs: A systematic review of antecedents, outcomes and moderators

• The majority of studies analyze firm-level antecedents of international involvement.
• Outcomes of international involvement are significantly neglected.
• The field has recently shifted away from an earlier phenomenological focus toward greater emphasis on theory.
• Majority of existing research takes the SME as the primary unit of analysis and neglects others such as SME networks.
• Researchers emphasize content research over process research.

This article seeks to review the present state of research on established SME's international involvement. Based on a literature review of 121 articles, we develop an integrative framework that examines the antecedents, outcomes and moderators of SME international involvement. We critically assess and examine how the literature has evolved over the last three decades. Particular attention is paid to discussing the main findings, theoretical and methodological inconsistencies, and to providing suggestions for future research. The review reveals that while international involvement research has made considerable progress over the last few years, its advances have been uneven and leave important areas of research unexplored.