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Managers involved with export marketing are concerned first with entry mode decisions for their foreign expansions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the key factors that influence the exporting firm's foreign market entry mode choice. It aims to test empirically the hypothesized relation between three kinds of determinants – i.e. transaction costs, export behavior, and channel environment – and the likelihood of selecting an integrated as opposed to an independent mode.

Through an analytical review, research hypotheses were built. An empirical investigation was carried out among 420 exporting firms, which were surveyed to explore the determinants of their entry mode choice decision. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis are employed to extract and test key influential factors on the basis of the data of this sample. Then, logistic regression models are used to determine the likelihood relationships between the exporting mode and the declined variables.

The results show that not all constructs hypothesized with the entry mode relationship were introduced into the model, and only three variables were retained that were significant in predicting the entry mode choice: two transaction costs variables and one export behavior variable. None of the channel environment variables was maintained by the main effects model; they constituted only pure moderators of the relationship between the transaction costs factors and the entry mode choice decision.

Although probably classified within the category of classical research, the paper can easily contribute to the current literature in more than one way. But the research does contain certain limitations, mainly with sampling procedures. The main limitation is that the sample was one of convenience and did not respect the heterogeneous character of the subjects, with the result that the different empirical tests are not easily generalizable.

This research should help managers to identify some of the circumstances under which direct exporting modes might be deployed to enhance international marketing performance in foreign markets. Direct exporting should be considered in the area of small and medium‐sized exporting firms at the outside of a new industrialized economy. It might be concerned within an adaptive marketing approach where the environment pressures have only moderating effects.

The paper offers interesting insight into the decision tools in international marketing. Principally, the empirical study makes a major contribution to the limited body of empirical knowledge on entry mode choice for the exporting activities of small and medium‐sized enterprises in the context of an emerging economy. It points out the fundamental value of the transaction costs approach and verifies the theoretical assumptions of the moderating effects of the environment variables.

Focusing on the global trade collapse and the subsequent recovery period, the purpose of this paper is to examine the export performance of firms that are involved in complex internationalization strategies.

The authors use a random-effects probit model with panel data and a dynamic panel data model (GMM system) for Spanish manufacturing firms from 2006 to 2013 period.

It is found that, once firm characteristics are controlled for, complex internationalization plays an important role in continuing to export and, additionally, positively influences the level of exports. Firms active in a complex mix of internationalization strategies have an added advantage, which enables them to confront the uncertainty of foreign markets in better conditions and translates to a lower likelihood of ceasing exporting and to higher export values.

The present paper throws light on this question by showing that the negative impact of trade collapse in 2009 on the export level was lower for firms inserted in complex internationalization strategies and the subsequent recovery was more intense.

The analysis goes one step further and investigates whether the impact is different during the trade collapse in 2009 and the following recovery. Here, previous empirical research at firm level on the role of complex internationalization strategies in trade is contradictory.

Much has been written about the manifestations and managerial implications of customer co-production in service offerings. However, there have been relatively few references to issues of co-production in international service environments. Co-production is very relevant in international environments because of the requirements for interaction between producers and consumers, which interaction spans international borders and national cultures. The purpose of this paper is to apply an established theory of co-production, the Unified Service Theory (UST), to the international service context. This provides the authors with structured models for conceptualizing the co-productive nature of international service offerings and assessing-related managerial implications.

The UST provides a model of co-productive service delivery. Extending that model, the authors develop a taxonomy of international service based on the “four modes of service supply” provided in the General Agreement on Trade and Services instituted by the World Trade Organization (WTO). Then, using data from the WTO and World Bank, the authors propose and test six hypotheses for predicting service exporting focus corresponding to the co-production taxonomy.

Based on the analysis of empirical data, the authors find more service exporting focus in small, growing, high-wage economies that have a significant service base and focus in merchandise exporting. The strength of these effects differs for different modes of service supply.

The authors also discuss cultural issues of international service, but the empirical analysis of culture effects is thus far inconclusive. Also, the analysis is limited to modeling and studying dyadic relationships, i.e., service providers in one country involved in an interchange with customers in another country. A natural extension would be to consider triads and more complex networks of co-productive service offerings.

This research shows how managerial implication of the UST can be extended to international service contexts. The authors review managerial implications pertaining to meeting variable demand, describing service characteristics, and pricing.

Co-production research is well-established in service management literature. This paper extends that research to international contexts by describing the WTO taxonomy in terms of the UST. This allows the authors to apply various insights of co-production to international service offerings.

The purpose of this paper is to add to the accumulative knowledge in the field through investigating the different factors affecting the choice of export entry mode by Egyptian SMEs. An organised examination of the literature related to export entry modes by SMEs is discussed to provide and develop a clear understanding about the different factors affecting the choice of export entry mode by Egyptian SMEs. Such investigation will help in achieving a deep and reflective understanding of current exporting practises by Egyptian SMEs. The findings indicated that there is very few research studies in the literature related to the choice of export entry mode in developing countries in general and there was no published studies related to the choice of export entry mode in Egypt.

The paper reviews the published literature related to choice of export entry mode by SMEs in general and to SMEs in developing countries (e.g. Egypt) in particular. Based on this review and the results of two focus groups, the paper validates a conceptual model utilising a positivist research philosophy with a quantitative approach, in which quantitative data are collected based on survey strategy through questionnaires to address different levels of the study.

The findings showed that Egyptian SMEs owners, marketing and sales managers have a limited knowledge in relation to the different available export entry modes. The findings also illustrated that SME internal factors, local market factors and target market factors have different impacts on the choice of export entry mode and that only small number of Egyptian SMEs conducted an effective and efficient export activities.

The paper will provide great benefits for entrepreneurs, policy makers, practitioners, researchers and educators though providing a clearer view and deep understanding for the issues related to different factors affecting the choice of export entry mode by Egyptian SMEs.

The paper adds to the extremely limited number of empirical studies that has been conducted to investigate different factors affecting the choice of export entry mode by Egyptian and Developing Economies SMEs. Depending on this research, researchers and scholars in the field can have a clearer view to set their attitude towards suitable future research studies which in turn will contribute to the related accumulated knowledge in the field.

Export information acquisition has mostly been examined disparately as researchers have tended to focus on certain modes of information acquisition independently of others. Furthermore, past studies have typically employed single‐item measures to operationalize information acquisition. The present study attempts to redress these deficiencies by considering a comprehensive set of export information acquisition modes and by developing psychometrically sound measures for each. The results show the adequacy of considering three broad export information acquisition modes (export marketing research, export assistance, and export market intelligence), each of which is operationalized by means of a multi‐item scale. The latter are shown to be reliable and to possess content, convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity.

The study this chapter reports focuses on how network theory contributes to the understanding of the internationalization process of SMEs and measures the effect of network capability on performance in international trade and has three research objectives.

The first objective of the study relates to providing new insights into the international market development activities through the application of a network perspective. The chapter reviews the international business literature to ascertain the development of thought, the research gaps, and the shortcomings. This review shows that the network perspective is a useful and popular theoretical domain that researchers can use to understand international activities, particularly of small, high technology, resource-constrained firms.

The second research objective is to gain a deeper understanding of network capability. This chapter presents a model for the impact of network capability on international performance by building on the emerging literature on the dynamic capabilities view of the firm. The model conceptualizes network capability in terms of network characteristics, network operation, and network resources. Network characteristics comprise strong and weak ties (operationalized as foreign-market entry modes), relational capability, and the level of trust between partners. Network operation focuses on network initiation, network coordination, and network learning capabilities. Network resources comprise network human-capital resources, synergy-sensitive resources (resource combinations within the network), and information sharing within the network.

The third research objective is to determine the impact of networking capability on the international performance of SMEs. The study analyzes 11 hypotheses through structural equations modeling using LISREL. The hypotheses relate to strong and weak ties, the relative strength of strong ties over weak ties, and each of the eight remaining constructs of networking capability in the study. The research conducts a cross-sectional study by using a sample of SMEs drawn from the telecommunications industry in Ireland.

The study supports the hypothesis that strong ties are more influential on international performance than weak ties. Similarly, network coordination and human-capital resources have a positive and significant association with international performance. Strong ties, weak ties, trust, network initiation, synergy-sensitive resources, relational capability, network learning, and information sharing do not have a significant association with international performance. The results of this study are strong (R2=0.63 for performance as the outcome) and provide a number of interesting insights into the relations between collaboration or networking capability and performance.

This study provides managers and policy makers with an improved understanding of the contingent effects of networks to highlight situations where networks might have limited, zero, or even negative effects on business outcomes. The study cautions against the tendency to interpret networks as universally beneficial to business development and performance outcomes.

Focuses on characteristics of a host country′s market that influence a firm′s entry mode choice of exporting versus producing in that foreign country. A survey was conducted among US manufacturers who exported a given product to one country and locally produced the same product within another country. The host country′s market characteristics were described in terms of their business environment, production factors, and competitiveness of local competitors. The hypotheses tested indicated that the level of competitiveness of local competitors and availability of local production factors have a greater impact on the firm′s entry mode choice than a host country′s business environment factors.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically evaluate a model of the firm‐level determinants of export performance that includes the firm's internationalization modes other than exporting.

The paper uses information gathered on 147 Italian manufacturing small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and applies a structural equation modeling procedure to evaluate determinants included in the model, which are: the firm's commitment to developing an international marketing strategy, the organizational structure for exports, international modes other than exporting (foreign direct investment, international alliances, global sourcing), and some characteristics of the firm already extensively explored in other studies (size, age, international experience).

The above‐mentioned firm internationalization methods are shown, as a whole, to have a statistically significant, positive and direct influence on export performance. The same can be said of the strategic variable and the organizational variable, whereas the firm characteristics have only an indirect effect on export performance, mediated by the previous three determinants.

The study presents some limitations. In particular, it was limited to manufacturing SMEs in a particular geographical area (North‐East Italy). Replications in other territories are needed to validate the current findings. Moreover, the results of the statistical analysis reveal a moderate support to the research model with regard to some fit indices. These issues could be addressed in future research.

The most important outcome of the study refers to the influence of the internationalization modes other than exporting. Although a great deal of theoretical and empirical literature analyzed the determinants of export performance, this relationship has been largely neglected.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the gender of the firm owner on the export behaviour of firms in the Indian context.

The present study utilizes the data from World Bank’s Enterprise Survey. The survey provides information on 9,281 firms located in different regions in India. Binomial logistic regression is employed to examine if the owner’s gender matters for the firm’s export-related decisions (export propensity, export mode, export intensity and export market diversification) as a direct or moderating factor controlling for other possible determinants of export activity.

The findings of the study reveal that firms with a majority of female ownership are less likely to export. However, once the firms indulge in exports, their choice of export mode and export intensity is not affected by the owner’s gender. The gender of the firm owner plays an important role in export market diversification as it is observed that the firms owned by the majority of women have concentrated export markets.

The findings advocate the integration of gender perspective into export promotion policies in India. In light of the findings that the gender of the firm owner entails a heterogeneous impact on different dimensions of export, the key areas requiring policy interventions are female entrepreneur’s export participation and export market diversification.

This study augments the previous scholarship by focusing on the intersection of the gender of firm owner and export propensity along with other unexplored dimensions of export behaviour in female entrepreneurship literature viz. mode of export, export intensity and export market diversification.

First, this paper aims to argue that small- and medium-sized manufacturers’ (SMMs’) production-exploitation can generally and primary influence their choices of export marketing control modes (EMCMs). Building on this central argument, two other supportive production-related resources: “production-exploration” and “relationships with home suppliers” are argued that could moderate this proposed effect. Three EMCMs including independent, hybrid and integrated modes, are discussed. Second, this study also proposes that SMMs with an internal fit between their three-key production-related resources and their choices of EMCMs will outperform their counterparts that do not have such internal fit.

This study designed a multiple-source survey to collect data from 158 Taiwanese SMMs that are highly dependent on export sales.

The results support the argument and the study connects the resource-based view (RBV) to the B2B marketing literature to better understand the EMCMs of SMMs.

Drawing on the RBV, this study examines how the three-key production-related resources can influence SMMs’ choices of EMCMs of branding and channels, respectively.