This study aims to bridge the research on the internationalization of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with the literature on initial public offerings (IPOs). It investigates how IPOs affect SMEs’ foreign investment decisions as they internationalize. We argue that IPOs enable SMEs to engage in a period of accelerated foreign expansion, resulting in a wave-like pattern, as suggested by Håkanson and Kappen’s (J Int Bus Stud 48(9):1103–1113, 2017) ‘Casino model’ of internationalization. We also propose that there will be a post-IPO shift in SMEs entering less familiar locations and towards taking higher ownership stakes in new subsidiaries. We use a difference-in-differences design combined with coarsened exact matching to isolate the effects of IPOs. Our analysis of overseas investments by a matched sample of newly listed Japanese manufacturing SMEs and their private counterparts provides strong evidence that SMEs accelerate the pace of establishing new foreign subsidiaries after going public. The results also reveal nuanced changes in the location and ownership patterns in the post-IPO period. This study identifies the IPO as a significant antecedent to SME foreign expansion and offers a new explanation for intertemporal variance in the pace, direction, and commitment of the SME internationalization process.

本研究旨在将中小型企业 (SME) 的国际化研究与首次公开募股 (IPO) 的文献联系起来。它调查了 IPO 在中小企业国际化过程中如何影响它们的外国投资决策。我们认为，正如 Håkanson 和 Kappen (J Int Bus Stud 48(9):1103–1113, 2017) 的“赌场模式”所建议的那样，IPO 使中小企业能够参与一段加速的海外扩张时期，从而形成一种波浪状的模式。的国际化。我们还建议，中小企业将在 IPO 后转向不太熟悉的地点，并在新子公司中持有更高的所有权股份。我们使用差分设计结合粗化精确匹配来隔离 IPO 的影响。我们通过对新上市的日本制造业中小企业及其私营同行的匹配样本进行的海外投资分析提供了强有力的证据，证明中小企业在上市后加快了建立新的外国子公司的步伐。结果还揭示了 IPO 后时期的位置和所有权模式的细微变化。本研究将 IPO 确定为中小企业海外扩张的重要先决条件，并为中小企业国际化进程的步伐、方向和承诺的跨期差异提供了新的解释。