Organizational and managerial resources and export strategies influencing export performance of small and medium enterprises

Abstract

Different antecedent elements of export performance have been studied during the past 60 years implicating several different theoretical frameworks, conceptualizations, measurement, and contributing to number of empirical evidence. Still the results have remained mixed and even contradictory. This study increments to this selection with examining these antecedent elements behind firm’s export performance offering empirical evidence from SMEs in three countries. The main goal of this study is to examine the effect of selected organizational and managerial resources and export strategies on firm’s export performance. The theoretical framework of this study is based on the resource based view. Based on the previous literature and empirical findings 10 hypotheses are formed. Four hypotheses deal with the assumed relation between the organizational resources (firm and product related) and export performance. Another four hypotheses concern the assumed relation between the managerial resources and export performance. Concerning firm’s export marketing strategy, hypotheses have been formed to address the relation between adaptation of the four marketing mix elements (product, price, promotion, distribution) and export performance. Finally, one hypothesis has been formed on the relation between market spreading strategy (number of firm’s export countries) and export performance. The findings show that in case of the organizational resources, the quality of the product and the uniqueness of the product have a positive effect on export performance. Contrary to this, the firm’s experience in exporting does not have positive effect on export performance. From the managerial resources, the international experience of the management and management’s international commitment have positive effect on export performance but the level of management’s education does not have positive effect on export performance. Moreover, the results indicate that out of the other selected resources and export strategies none have significant impact on export performance. These findings support the previous empirical findings on the topic highlighting the impact of these resources for export performance.