Emotional intelligence strengthens the link between owner-managers’ leadership self-efficacy and choosing equity (higher-commitment) entry modes (i.e., when emotional intelligence is higher, self-efficacy is more strongly associated with selecting equity-based entry)

SME owner-managers’ emotional intelligence is positively associated with their firms' degree of internationalisation (more international sales and wider geographic spread)

Emotional intelligence is linked to a stronger global mindset, and global mindset partly explains why higher emotional intelligent owner-managers lead more internationalised SMEs

In highly family-involved SMEs, SEW-linked belongingness/attachment can bias firms towards partner engagement/maintenance under bounded rationality, potentially slowing internationalisation growth; in lower-involvement types, such SEW tendencies may be absent, enabling more switching partners

Among mature born globals, an emphasis on emotional brand meaning is associated with stronger performance outcomes (e.g. sales volume and profitability) than a predominantly functional/technological brand emphasis

Stronger identification is associated with a lower degree of internationalisation. Yet this pattern shifts in more supportive governance contexts; it becomes more favourable when family involvement on the board is higher and when CEO tenure is longer

Early country selection in SME restaurant franchises is often shaped by subjective/intuition-based motives (e.g. personal attraction or partner-driven enthusiasm) when expansion is opportunistic rather than planned

Aligned emotional attachment within the family firm top management team (e.g. pride in international success and ties to foreign partners) can enable internationalisation decisions and commitment

Misaligned attachment to legacy routines or past choices creates collaboration frictions that can constrain, or distort decisions such as entry mode and location choices, as well as post-entry commitment changes (including withdrawal/closure)

Family firms place high value on non-financial, relationship- and identity-related considerations, which helps explain why they are generally less likely to downsize employees than non-family firms. This tendency becomes less pronounced when firms pursue a more internationally advanced sales approach – higher export intensity, broader geographic reach beyond the home region and direct exporting – suggesting that stronger international engagement shifts the trade-offs family firms make

Internationalisation choices are influenced not only by reasoning and information, but also by fear of failure, which can be triggered when managers face high uncertainty and the possibility of negative consequences

Proposes that this fear can shape commitment decisions – for example, making firms more likely to delay, scale back or even reverse international involvement after setbacks – thereby linking an individual emotional response to firm-level internationalisation patterns within the Uppsala/process framework

Managers' emotions and mood can shape how they judge uncertainty and risk, which then influences commitment decisions (whether to add, maintain, reduce or redirect resources in foreign markets)

Because judgments are emotion-influenced, internationalisation often proceeds through small commitment steps, yet these can still accumulate into patterns that look “non-linear” over time

More sudden changes in internationalisation are portrayed as more likely when a high-pressure shock shifts decision-making towards fast, intuitive reactions – where emotions can carry more weight – or when new decision-makers with different emotional/cognitive tendencies take over

Managerial confidence is a key emotion shaping post-entry internationalisation decisions under Brexit uncertainty: it influences how managers interpret the shock and whether they maintain/increase or scale back commitment to the market

Emotions shape how entrepreneurs interpret information, evaluate opportunities and commit to action, working alongside cognitive reasoning

Different emotions push decision-making in different directions (some discouraging risk-taking, others encouraging persistence)

Entrepreneurial passion and emotional intelligence as resources that can support sustained effort and effective interaction in international contexts

Family firms expand their exports more slowly than non-family firms, consistent with a more cautious, step-by-step approach linked to preserving SEW

Higher emotional intelligence is associated with better international relationship quality with foreign buyers (stronger trust, commitment, cooperation and satisfaction), and these relationship-quality improvements are linked to a stronger long-term orientation towards continuing the cross-border relationship

Founder-led family firms are more likely to choose greenfields over acquisitions when entering foreign markets. The presence of non-family directors generally shifts firms towards acquisitions, and this influence is strongest in second-generation firms but weakens in later generations, which is linked to stronger SEW preservation tendencies among long-surviving family firms

Emotional intelligence does not significantly differentiate SMEs with low vs medium vs high degree of internationalisation, even though managers report relatively high emotional intelligence across groups

Emotional intelligence is positively related to external networking behaviour, but this networking does not translate into (or mediate) higher internationalisation levels in their results

SMEs whose owners/managers show higher applied spirituality tend to feel more committed to their business network, especially in more conservative regions. This stronger commitment is linked to gaining more useful non-material support from the network (e.g. knowledge and information), which is then associated with better internationalisation performance

Entrepreneurs with higher personal and social emotional intelligence are more likely to internationalise via exporting during recession conditions

Family SMEs' internationalisation intensity is linked to socio-emotional goals rather than purely economic considerations: some goals appear to constrain exporting while others support stronger export engagement

Identification with the firm is associated with lower export intensity, whereas the goal of renewing family bonds across generations is associated with higher export intensity, highlighting that different SEW dimensions can push internationalisation in opposite directions

Born globals with a stronger emotional branding orientation tend to report better international performance

In contrast, a more functional branding emphasis does not show a comparable performance benefit in their results

Higher emotional intelligence is associated with a more constructive relationship climate with foreign customers – stronger communication and social bonding and lower conflict (and generally lower relational distance) – which in turn relates to better relationship performance

Emotional intelligence's benefits can be weaker when the foreign customer behaves more opportunistically or when the exporter–buyer pair is more incompatible

Family pride influences how ownership structure relates to exporting. Export intensity is lowest when family ownership is more evenly split, but this drop is much smaller when SEW is high – high-SEW families with shared ownership tend to export more than low-SEW families with shared ownership

Internationally active immigrant entrepreneurs often face stressful cross-cultural incidents that trigger negative feelings (e.g. frustration, loneliness, anger, stress), and that their ability to manage/regulate these emotions is a key capability for staying effective in cross-border business

A positive mindset supports the emotion-management capacity and helps entrepreneurs handle setbacks and interactions more constructively, which supports ongoing international activity and relationship building

During a cross-border acquisition's integration phase, top managers and key people experience a shifting mix of positive and negative emotions, with negative feelings – especially anger – tending to become more prominent as integration unfolds. These emotions are triggered by both personal concerns (e.g. loss of ownership/control, career uncertainty) and firm-level developments (e.g. cultural/managerial differences, unmet expectations, uncertainty about the future) and the same event can be interpreted differently by different individuals

Even when emotions run high, managers' behaviour may be constrained (for example by contractual arrangements), which can limit how emotions translate into visible action

Family firms' pathways to high international performance are shaped by SEW preservation motives (e.g. protecting family control/identity and avoiding situations that could threaten SEW). This is used to explain why family firms more often achieve high performance through simpler, control-preserving paths (relying strongly on one key lever) rather than needing multiple conditions at once

Family firms' international expansion depends on whether they can access and use international market knowledge without threatening socio-emotional priorities

Collaboration intensity supports multinationality mainly through building international market knowledge, and this indirect effect is stronger when network trust is high; suggesting that trust helps family firms translate partner ties into international growth

Foreign entrepreneurs running SMEs in Shanghai strengthen guanxi by moving beyond initial contact to a deeper relationship stage where they invest more in an emotional bond and develop affect-based trust

Stronger ties are characterised less by purely instrumental assessments and more by relationship-building behaviours that support emotion-laden trust, which helps entrepreneurs access local support and resources

In small family firms, SEW-related priorities – especially family trust and harmony – can support initial internationalisation by enabling early exporting through trusted family ties and familiar contacts. However, the same priorities can later constrain post-entry expansion: protecting harmony and avoiding “outsider” risk tends to limit broader networking and capability building, making it harder to move beyond exporting into more committed modes or more distant markets

Across four cross-border mergers and acquisitions, employees' emotional reactions are strongly shaped by managerial communication and behaviour under uncertainty. These emotions then act as an intermediary mechanism, influencing employee attitudes and behaviours (often discussed as “merger syndrome” dynamics) that can ultimately affect integration progress and perceived mergers and acquisitions outcomes

Emotions should be treated as a real part of how internationalisation happens; as firms gain experience and commit resources abroad, decision-makers can develop emotional attachment (or negative feelings), and these emotions can then influence what they learn and how willing they are to increase, maintain or reduce their international commitments later on

Emotions can matter in pre-entry foreign direct investment decisions: when decision-makers have positive, personally rooted motivations towards a target country (captured through factors like personal experience, nationality links or personal contacts), firms are more likely to proceed with foreign direct investment