International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research

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Why African SME’s Struggle to Internationalise: A Comparative Analysis of Barriers, Capabilities and Institutional Contexts

Author(s) Mr. Olusola Sam-Sorungbe
Country United Kingdom
Abstract The small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Africa are still grossly underrepresented in the international markets even after the recent developments in the digital infrastructure and regional integration. Basing its argument on a synthesis of sixty focused sources and a mixed-method sequential design (qualitative interviews in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, then a firm-level survey and PLS-SEM analysis of some 400 SMEs supplemented with national indicators), this article recapitulates the puzzle of the internationalisation of African SMEs as requiring a conversion problem: the necessity to transform institutional anarchy into governable and repeatable cross-border exchanges. Our Triple-Layer Barrier Logic (Institutional Friction) is created and the central process between the layers is tested as follows: Triple-Layer Barrier Logic (Institutional Friction), Transaction Governance Architecture and Capability Orchestration. The evidence based on quantitative findings will verify four major hypotheses: institutional friction demeans the export performance (H1); the governance substitutes (diaspora brokerage, relational contracting, platform escrow) mitigate the adverse effect (H2); the effectiveness of governance substitutes depends on the depth of firm capability (absorptive capacity, digital readiness, strategic agility) (H3); the combination of high governance substitution and high capability depth has the strongest stabilising effect on export performance (H4). The qualitative evidence sheds light on the mechanisms of substitution that are built and why the depth of capability is the determinant of conversion efficiency. Theoretically, the article provides a contribution to the international business research by re-establishing institutional weakness as not a fixed barrier but as a dynamic conversion problem and formalising governance substitutes and capability orchestration as prime conversion processes. In practice, it shifts policy and managerial priorities to convert architectures of underwriting-targeted capability acceleration as well as legitimised brokerage infrastructures, instead of waiting to have top-down institutional perfection. The research provides tangible visualisable patterns and practical advice to researchers and practitioners who want to facilitate SME internationalisation in a context of unrelenting institutional incompleteness.
Keywords SME internationalisation, Resource-Based View, Institutional Theory, Network, Theory, Africa, comparative analysis
Field Business Administration
Published In Volume 7, Issue 6, November-December 2025
Published On 2025-11-09
DOI https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2025.v07i06.60097
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E-ISSN 2582-2160
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