The Importance of Trust for Entrepreneurial Internationalization: Evidence from Mexico

Abstract

This article presents six case studies, based on unstructured in-depth interviews with CEOs from small and medium-sized Mexican companies, to explain why and how trust is relevant for internationalization. These firms suffer from negative stereotypes about their culture and the country’s legal system, which creates a lack of individual and institutional trust. Therefore, we argue that mistrust is an additional barrier to entrepreneurial internationalization in the case of Mexico, and likely in the case of other developing countries. Other implications and specific findings are discussed.