**1. Introduction**

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent over 96% of Mozambique's business population (Instituto Nacional de Estatística 2017), but their contribution in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) and employment is still relatively low. SMEs contribute 28% of GDP and 42% in formal employment, facing challenges at the business environment level, namely in terms of access to markets, access to finance, and coordination of support mechanisms (Ministério da Indústria e Comércio 2016). SMEs need to enhance their competitiveness to increase their economic contribution in emerging economies. Thus, product and process innovation can contribute to promoting structural change among developing countries and support the international competitiveness of SMEs (Ministério da Indústria e Comércio 2016).

It is important for SMEs to invest in their innovation capabilities (ICs), as they are considered important levers of product and process innovation (Blanchard 2020) and important sources of competitive advantage (Guan and Ma 2003; Knight and Kim 2009; Sen and Egelhoff 2000; Wang and Ahmed 2004), positively influencing the export performance of SMEs (Guan and Ma 2003; Oura et al. 2016; Ribau et al. 2017a). Based on the concept of dynamic capabilities, ICs are recognized as key drivers of business growth (Teece et al. 1997).

Government programs supporting internationalization play a primary role in the development of businesses, with positive consequences for national economies (Jalali 2012). These programs play an important role for SMEs, as they have some resource constraints,

**Citation:** Moreira, Antonio, Eurico Navaia, and Cláudia Ribau. 2022. Moderation Effects of Government Institutional Support, Active and Reactive Internationalization Behavior on Innovation Capability and Export Performance. *Economies* 10: 177. https://doi.org/10.3390/ economies10080177

Academic Editors: Ralf Fendel, Robert Czudaj and Sajid Anwar

Received: 30 June 2022 Accepted: 19 July 2022 Published: 22 July 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

especially when competing in international markets with larger and more experienced companies. Thus, it is not uncommon for SMEs to seek to explore international markets, even though they have many limitations on resources and skills and little international experience (Freixanet 2012; Ayob and Freixanet 2014). Government support, in these situations, is crucial for some SMEs to overcome their limitations and be able to compete in international markets. Take, for example, export support programs (Comi and Resmini 2020; Malca et al. 2020). Likewise, given that SMEs have a multifaceted role and are involved in increasing internationalization processes, international support programs have been of added value in allowing SMEs to adjust their resources to contexts in order to progress to broader international markets (Francis and Collins-Dodd 2004; Mota et al. 2021).

While there is empirical research on the determinants of export performance (Guan and Ma 2003; Vicente et al. 2015; Oura et al. 2016; Ribau et al. 2017a), there are some studies addressing export performance in the context of emerging economy environments (Guan and Ma 2003; LiPuma et al. 2013; Malca et al. 2020; Oura et al. 2016). In addition, the importance of dynamic capabilities and ICs in the context of emerging economies has been overlooked as there are few studies addressing the relationship between ICs and export performance (Guan and Ma 2003; Krammer et al. 2018; Oura et al. 2016). Moreover, government support to firms is expected to create differential value in export performance (Freixanet 2012). Indeed, if firms need institutional support to increase their competitiveness in foreign markets (Francis and Collins-Dodd 2004; Krammer et al. 2018) in emerging economies firms, due to the lack of proper resources, which normally depend on institutional support to increase their competitiveness in foreign markets (LiPuma et al. 2013; Yi et al. 2013).

Another aspect that influences export performance is the type of active/reactive internationalization (Westhead et al. 2004; Ribau et al. 2017b). Proactive stimuli can result from SMEs' behavior and a deliberate search for market opportunities abroad, with the external environment being the source of these stimuli (Westhead et al. 2004). Moreover, firms embracing active internationalization strategies experience better export performance than those implementing reactive internationalization strategies (Ribau et al. 2017b). However, little is known on how active/reactive internationalization strategies influence export performance among SMEs from emerging countries.

Based on the two gaps above referred, this paper seeks to add theoretical value by analyzing the influence of both government institutional support and active/reactive internationalization strategies in the relationship between innovation capabilities and export performance, in emerging economies, particularly in Mozambique. For this reason, we raise the following research questions: How do ICs affect export performance in SMEs? What is the moderating effect of institutional factors (relationship with government) on the relationship between ICs and export performance? What is the moderating effect of SMEs' proactive and reactive internationalization strategies on the relationship between ICs and export performance?

The paper is divided into six sections. After this introduction, Section 2 reviews the relevant literature including hypothesis development, in which we examine the relationships between ICs and export performance, and the moderating effects of relationship with government and proactive/reactive behavior of SMEs. The research methodology and model are discussed in Section 3. Section 4 reveals the discussion of the most significant results, while Section 5 details the main findings. Section 6 presents the limitations and future lines of research.
