Digitalization and Institutional Context in Entrepreneurial Internationalization: An Evolutionary Review of Shifting Logics (2015–2025)
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Entrepreneurial internationalization has increasingly unfolded in environments shaped by rapid digital transformation and diverse institutional conditions. While prior research acknowledges the importance of digitalization and institutional context, these forces are often examined in isolation or treated as static influences. As a result, it remains unclear how their roles have evolved over time and how their interaction has reshaped entrepreneurial opportunity recognition and internationalization processes. This study addresses this gap by conducting an evolutionary review of international entrepreneurship research published between 2015 and 2025. Adopting a longitudinal and interpretive perspective, the review traces shifting logics in how digitalization and institutional context have been conceptualized across three phases of development. The analysis shows that digitalization evolves from a supportive enabler of cross-border activity, to a mechanism of strategic reconfiguration, and ultimately into a structural force that actively interacts with institutions by generating both new opportunities and new forms of friction. In parallel, institutional context shifts from being treated as a relatively stable background condition to being understood as a dynamic source of constraint, uncertainty, and entrepreneurial advantage. By synthesizing these developments, this review makes three contributions. First, it reframes entrepreneurial internationalization as an evolving process shaped by the co-evolution of digital capabilities, institutional environments, and entrepreneurial agency. Second, it clarifies why digitalization does not uniformly reduce institutional barriers, but often amplifies institutional frictions and governance challenges, particularly in digitally mediated and institutionally diverse markets. Third, it advances an integrative understanding of opportunity recognition as a temporally dynamic and contextually embedded phenomenon, and outlines directions for future research that emphasize longitudinal, comparative, and process-oriented approaches to studying entrepreneurial internationalization in the digital era.
Institutions: University of Technology Malaysia, Huizhou University
Language: English
Subfield: Strategy and Management
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7125583965
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