State agencies and SME internationalization: a review and research agenda

As research on business–government relations and the state’s role in international business expands, the influence of institutions on firm internationalization is increasingly recognized. Yet the role of state agencies in shaping SMEs’ internationalization trajectories remains unclear, constraining our understanding of their institutional impact. Drawing on 60 articles from leading international business and management journals, we define and conceptually frame state agencies. We classify the reviewed studies into three dimensions—macro, meso, and micro—to delineate the principal roles of state agencies. Within each dimension, we analyze interactions between state agencies and SMEs, as well as the interfaces between state agencies and institutional environments. Building on this analysis, we develop a typology to evaluate how state agencies affect SMEs’ cross-border activities across diverse institutional contexts and to guide future research. Our contribution is to advance an agency-centered perspective on institutions, moving beyond system-level accounts to reveal the organizational mechanisms through which state agencies shape international activity.