ABSTRACT
The objective of this research was to map the profile of scientific production on the internationalization strategy of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), both nationally and internationally, from 2012 to 2021, through a bibliometric study with a quantitative approach, with with the intention of presenting a comparative analysis and identifying how Brazil is compared to other countries. The Scopus database (CAPES) was used, plus the VOSviewer tool. Internationalization is an important and complex achievement for companies and has become a widely studied topic in the field of SMEs;however, Brazil has little prominence. This study presents a broad view of thematic publications, allowing a current investigation of their transmission in scientific productions, aiming to fill the gap observed in the literature, especially that produced in Brazil. The results meant that exploratory, qualitative research and case studies were predominant, and that publications on the subject of research grew, with 2020 being the peak of publications, in view of the Covid-19 pandemic, which cause negative economic and financial impacts, mainly on SMEs, thus arousing greater interest for the researcher. Despite the growing interest in the subject in the period surveyed, Brazil had only 1.8% of the publications. Note in the research that there is a predominance of good Qualis concepts (A1 and A2). It was also noticed that the co-citation network among the 10 most cited authors revealed a thematic, methodological and/or conceptual proximity between them, revealing lines of thought or seminal research that influenced the other authors of the researched journals. Finally, this research aims to serve as a stimulus for future work related to and/or involving this topic that is so important for small and medium-sized organizations, in addition to being able to serve as a source for further research, mainly in Brazil.