Cultural Heritage, Institutional Entrepreneurship, and Latin American SME Multinationalization: A Comparative Analysis of Peruvian Diaspora and Repatriate Gastronomy Entrepreneurs

How does “heritagization” — the process of valorization of national heritage — affect the multinationalization — the decision to establish foreign direct investment (FDI) — of Latin American companies? Using an institutional perspective that highlights entrepreneurial action, we theorize how multinationalization unfolds in companies in which cultural heritage is a relevant factor in order to internationalize. Heritage has the characteristics of an institution, defined as a set of socially inherited beliefs, norms, and rules contributing to a society’s identity, with an organizational governance structure to maintain such beliefs; whereas heritagization is the dynamic process of how the institution changes. The recent internationalization of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from Latin America serves as an ideal illustration for our theorizing.