Mireille Heral, Accompagnement à l’international des stratégies coopératives : le cas des éco-PME
Defended on 02-12-2021
Supervised by Karim Messeghem and Alexis Catanzaro.
Supporting cooperative strategies has become a major issue for actors in the internationalisation support ecosystem, particularly when it comes to supporting eco-SMEs, which deliver environmental solutions on a global scale and need to cooperate in order to pursue environmental opportunities. This thesis responds to researchers’ calls to study the internationalisation of eco-SMEs, to gain a better understanding of cooperative internationalisation and to examine the influence of international support actors on SMEs’ inter-organisational relationships. This doctoral work addresses the following research question: How can cooperative strategies for the internationalisation of eco-SMEs be supported? To provide a holistic answer, we draw on a mixed-methods approach comprising qualitative work (3 essays) and quantitative work (2 essays). This thesis contributes to sustainable entrepreneurship by demonstrating quantitatively that eco-SMEs pursue internationalisation strategies that differ from those of other firms. It contributes to international entrepreneurship and cooperative internationalisation by proposing a typology of international cooperative strategies that can be applied to multi-partner cooperation. Finally, it contributes to the literature on international support by proposing a multi-level model of support, by showing that support for cooperative strategies does exist, and by highlighting the intermediation activities that underlie the positive influence of internationalisation support ecosystem actors on SMEs’ inter-organisational relationships. We make recommendations to eco-SMEs and SMEs in general, to actors in the internationalisation support ecosystem and to policymakers, so that the specific needs of eco-SMEs and of cooperative internationalisation are better taken into account and international support schemes can evolve optimally.