This article shares the results of a systematic review of the literature on internationalization of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) based on bibliometric techniques. This review resulted in the identification of the main themes that have been the focus of researchers over 20 years, the emerging literature in the last 5 years, and a research agenda for future studies. It was also possible to propose a theoretical framework with the main influential factors in the various stages of the internationalization of SMEs. The analysis of 669 articles from 1998 to 2017 was carried out in two stages involving quantitative methods (bibliometric analysis and bibliographic coupling). The first analysis helped identify the main authors, journals, and countries that conducted research on internationalization of SMEs within these 20 years. In the second analysis, we divided the total period of 20 years into four sub-periods of 5 years, and the bibliographic coupling grouped similar articles in each period into research themes. The thematic clusters that emerged in the four sub-periods indicated that the more relevant themes of the cutting-edge literature were as follows: antecedents, patterns, and outcomes of the internationalization of SMEs. These themes were consistent with De Clercq et al.’s (2012) framework, making evident, by way of an exploratory method, the convergence of international business (IB) literature on the internationalization of SMEs, but with specific influential factors concerning SMEs.

本文分享了基于文献计量技术对有关中小型企业 (SME) 国际化的文献进行系统审查的结果。本综述确定了 20 年来研究人员关注的主要主题、过去 5 年的新兴文献以及未来研究的研究议程。还可以提出一个包含中小企业国际化各个阶段主要影响因素的理论框架。对1998-2017年669篇文章的分析分两个阶段进行，涉及定量方法（文献计量分析和文献耦合）。第一次分析有助于确定在这 20 年中对中小企业国际化进行研究的主要作者、期刊和国家。在第二次分析中，我们将20年的总时间段分为4个5年的子时间段，书目耦合将每个时间段的相似文章分组为研究主题。四个子时期出现的主题集群表明，前沿文献中更相关的主题如下：中小企业国际化的前因、模式和结果。这些主题与 De Clercq 等人（2012 年）的框架一致，通过探索性方法，表明国际商业 (IB) 文献关于中小企业国际化的趋同，但具有有关中小企业的特定影响因素。四个子时期出现的主题集群表明，前沿文献中更相关的主题如下：中小企业国际化的前因、模式和结果。这些主题与 De Clercq 等人（2012 年）的框架一致，通过探索性方法，表明国际商业 (IB) 文献关于中小企业国际化的趋同，但具有有关中小企业的特定影响因素。四个子时期出现的主题集群表明，前沿文献中更相关的主题如下：中小企业国际化的前因、模式和结果。这些主题与 De Clercq 等人（2012 年）的框架一致，通过探索性方法，表明国际商务 (IB) 文献关于中小企业国际化的趋同，但具有与中小企业有关的特定影响因素。