African Firms Internationalization: What Can We Learn from the Most Cited Articles Published in the Last Decade?

Abstract

Abstract This article aims to develop a recent overlook of African firms’ internationalization and its importance in consideration of the growing interest of multinational stakeholders. We analysed 26 most-cited journal articles, i.e., based on the number of citations, in the last decade, indexed in the Web of Science database, i.e., from 2011 to 2021. The previously published studies revealed that the internationalization of African firms is a fast-growing stream of the broader topic of international entrepreneurship. Our review also summarized two main research areas identified in the studied literature. The first focuses on selected features of African firms’ internationalization process. The second part underpins factors influencing their internationalization. The provided structured knowledge from the most cited articles serves as a tool to improve stakeholders’ understanding of international entrepreneurship in Africa. The study also proposes future research directions in international business and entrepreneurship in Africa. The article contributes to international entrepreneurship research in Africa by enumerating those aspects that shape the internationalization path of these global firms.