In today's highly competitive global environment, even small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to make product and process innovations in order to outperform the competition and satisfy global customers. Investigating the success factors of innovation performance has become critical for the survival and competitiveness of SMEs. The aim of this study is to explore the impact of the degree of internationalization (DoI) on innovation performance through the mediating factors of market and entrepreneurial orientation in the context of emerging-market SMEs. We tested our model and hypotheses with 235 SMEs in the United Arab Emirates, which is an emerging market. The results obtained from partial least squares estimates indicate that the degree of internationalization positively affects innovation performance and, more importantly, that this relationship is indirect and fully mediated by market and entrepreneurial orientation for SMEs. These results shed light on the mechanism of the effect of DoI on innovation performance in the emerging-market SME context. •This is the first study that analyze the link between internationalization and innovation performance through mediators.•A theoretical model is developed where MO and EO act as mediating factors between internationalization and innovation performance.•The proposed model is tested with a sample of 235 SMEs in the United Arab Emirates.•The findings of the study show that the influence of internationalization on innovation is indirect and fully mediated by market and entrepreneurial orientation.•This model has been tested in an under researched context which is emerging-market SMEs.