This study investigates the pursuit of international entrepreneurial opportunities (IEO), challenging the traditionally linear perception of this process. By utilizing the abductive process research approach and a critical realist lens, we evaluate IEOs within various contexts over time aiming for both iterative and flexible theorizing. The research explores the reciprocal interaction between entrepreneurs and their environments, examining how contexts shape opportunity pursuit and its evaluation, which affect favourable business strategies. In turn, opportunity pursuit influences the way entrepreneurs perceive surrounding environments and act upon that perception. Our findings reveal that opportunity pursuit is a non-linear process which is deeply influenced by integration with context. We highlight three main contributions to opportunity theory: the multiplicity of contexts and their effects, path dependence, and the reconsideration of temporality in opportunity pursuit. The study advocates for a paradigm shift towards recognizing the complex, non-linear nature of entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation, moving away from oversimplified traditional models. Our research advances the IEO discourse by identifying inefficiencies in current debates and suggesting pathways for further investigation.

Psychic distance has been conceptualized, defined, and operationalized differently by different scholars. It has also been used to explain different firm outcomes in international markets, such as firms' degree of internationalization and market performance. This has led to inconsistency in findings; hence, some have questioned the importance of psychic distance. Our paper aims to unpack some of these disagreements and inconsistencies. We do this by conceptually exploring that psychic distance is a multilevel construct, including difficulties with country and business distance. These levels should affect the firm degree of internationalization and performance. However, we further hypothesize that country distance should have a stronger effect on a firm degree of internationalization. In comparison, business distance should have a stronger effect on firm performance. Based on a quantitative study, we found empirical support for our predictions.

While uncertainty and human capital are treated as factors independently impacting equity crowdfunding investors’ decisions, literature on business angels and venture capital suggests that there is an interaction effect between the two. In focusing on this gap, the current study provides the first empirical evidence for the existence of an interaction effect between these indicators, where human capital moderates the negative effect of uncertainty on equity crowdfunding investors' decision-making. Moreover, we show that this interaction effect is also evident in high market uncertainty conditions as analysed both before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. We test these effects by analysing a proprietary dataset of 13,362 individual unaccredited investor-investment decisions made between July 2018 and December 2020, in technology-based venture equity crowdfunding campaigns.

In response to the calls for better understanding of impact of the non-Western business environment on business, this article explains how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) respond to resource-abundant rather than usually studied resource-constraint conditions. The evidence from six SMEs in Qatar exposes the role of munificent environment in enabling SMEs’ early and proactive internationalisation. We also explain why SMEs in this munificent national context prefer to internationalise through low commitment entry modes and how such environment constrains SMEs’ progression to advanced modes. The work contributes to the current understanding of the role of context in SME internationalisation and outlines implications for management practice.