The role of innovation and internationalization support in small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises’ export performance

Abstract Although research concerning the internationalization and innovativeness of small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) has received increasing scholarly attention, it mostly neglected internationalization support and underexplored post‐crisis contexts. Greece recently faced a severe economic crisis of international concern, which resulted in a unique business environment to examine the mechanisms of innovativeness and internationalization. This study examines the roles of innovativeness and internationalization support in export performance using survey data of 262 Greek manufacturing SMEs. Our findings indicate that innovation helps firms improve their export performance, but the different definitions of export performance and innovativeness caused sizeable differences. Internationalization support is important for the export performance of firms, and SMEs receiving high levels of internationalization support can overcome the lack of innovativeness and increase their export performance.