Despite the existing contributions on the economic and social relevance of industrial clusters in the firms' internationalization, research on these topics is still scarce and, particularly, controversial at an empirical level. This study contributes to the extant literature on international development, proposing to explore the impact that industrial clusters and innovation activities exert in the most relevant temporal dimension of the firm's foreign expansion—internationalization speed (earliness and postentry speed). Further, this research seeks to ascertain whether the relationship between industrial clusters and internationalization speed is significantly different for low and high‐technology businesses. Based on a sample of 3,537 Portuguese firms, collected in the SABI database, the results suggest that firms belonging to industrial clusters and developing innovation activities tend to exhibit a higher postentry speed, not observing the same impact in terms of early internationalization. The findings also reveal that low‐technology firms have an additional incentive to become involved in industrial clusters, since these actions will be reflected to a greater extent in their postentry speed than those of high‐technology firms.

PurposeDrawing on the resource-based view (RBV) and knowledge-based view (KBV) theories, this study contributes to deepen the knowledge that corporate social responsibility (CSR) exerts on firms' innovation, considering the role played by cooperation. The research also seeks to ascertain the factors that influence the development of business cooperation.Design/methodology/approachThe database used is the Community Innovation Survey (CIS, 2014) applied in the European Union (EU) during the time period 2012–2014. A sample of 7083 Portuguese firms were analyzed through the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe results suggest that CSR positively relates with firms' innovation, and business cooperation partially mediates this relationship. The outcomes also reveal that investing in certain types of innovation activities increases the firms' willingness to cooperate.Originality/valueThe findings contribute to encourage an open innovation strategy as an easy and effective way to cope with rapid trends and changes, since it demonstrates the complementary between innovation and cooperation, as sources of value creation. From a triple bottom line (TBL) perspective, it also highlights that CSR must include social, economic and environmental initiatives, and should be a part of the firms' innovation strategy. As a result, managers who intend to contribute for society in the long term should plan, monitor and manage all CSR dimensions.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) require a combination of organizational and individual skills to grow more rapidly in international markets. The question is whether there is an ideal combination to compete in the present (exploitation orientation) or to prepare to compete in the future (exploration orientation), and whether managerial cognition plays a role on determining international growth. The analysis of Portuguese manufacturing SMEs suggests that the manager's cognitive systems do not have an overall influence on the growth of foreign sales to total sales (FSTS), but the two cognitive systems (experiential and analytic) have a different influence on international exploitation and exploration. International exploration and exploitation mediate the relationship between the latter variables. This study contributes to a better understanding of the role that organizational ambidexterity plays on the SMEs' speed of internationalization and how the manager's cognitive systems influence this organizational orientation.

Despite the important existing contributions on public and political entrepreneurship, research on these topics is still scarce, particularly at the empirical level. Studies on political entrepreneurship have usually focused on the biography of entrepreneurial leaders and the analysis of case studies. Thus, a parameterisation of the variables and relationships that permit quantitative empirical research is in demand. The present study adds to the empirical literature on public and political entrepreneurship by proposing to examine and intersect several dimensions of political entrepreneurship at the local level: funds, activities, infrastructure, and global. Based on responses gathered from 108 Portuguese municipalities, we found that both individual-gender, previous occupational status, age, and managerial competencies of the mayor-and contextual conditionsaccessibilities, educational endowments, and business structure of the municipalities, namely the share of medium and large firms-are key determinants of local political entrepreneurship.