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This empirical study investigates the relationship between the choice of an export market expansion strategy and the subsequent performance of exporting firms. Multiple measures of export performance were compared across three groups of firms following different export market expansion strategies: export market concentration, concentric diversification, and diversification strategies. A sample of 52 small and medium‐sized US high technology manufacturers showed significant differences among three strategic groups in export level and growth measures, but no significant differences in export profitability measures were found.

Customer orientation (CO) means meeting customers’ needs better than competitors. Competitor orientation means using and acting upon the knowledge of competitors. Thus, the main aim of this study is to analyze the effects of environmental competitiveness on export performance by examining the moderating roles of these variables.

Based on data from 5,000 firms from a survey run in 2021 in Turkey facilitated by the Chamber of Commerce, the authors tested their hypotheses using partial least squares structural equation modeling and correlation analysis.

The results show that competitor orientation positively affects the relationship between a competitive environment and export performance. However, the authors do not find evidence of a significant effect on CO.

Service sector managers should sacrifice customers to gain export market share in favor of superiority with competitors.

Prior research has yet to emphasize the importance of competition intensity in export performance for service-logistics firms. However, the environmental competitiveness–performance relationship is better explained with the help of these test results and the two additional moderators suggested in this work. Moreover, the export performance indicators were gathered from an independent source.

The wine sector is a growing industry with an important share of the revenue resulting from export markets. Due to its cultural nature, wine exporting requires specific firm and managerial capabilities. As such, traditional approaches to the factors influencing export performance must integrate the specificities of wine as a product.

This study, based on a sample of 93 wine producers, develops and tests, using structural equation modeling, specifically the partial least squares method, a conceptual model of the influence of internal factors, external factors and partner relationship capabilities in export performance.

Results reveal that internal factors and partner relationships have an impact on the firm’s noneconomic performance which influences economic performance. It is also shown by the results that external factors do not affect the noneconomic performance or economic performance. Moreover, the results show the moderation effect of the noneconomic variable. Internal factors and relationship capabilities have an impact on economic performance considering the mediation effect of the noneconomic performance. Overall, firms’ internal factors and relationship capabilities are crucial to achieve better export performance for Portuguese wine companies.

This study combines the theories of SCP, resource-based view and relational or behavior perspective to present a novel approach to export performance by analyzing the external and internal dimensions of the firm in relation to both financial and nonfinancial performances.

El sector vitivinícola es una industria en crecimiento con una parte importante de los ingresos procedentes de los mercados de exportación. Debido a su naturaleza cultural, la exportación de vino requiere unas capacidades empresariales y de gestión específicas. Por ello, los enfoques tradicionales de los factores que influyen en los resultados de la exportación deben integrar las especificidades del vino como producto.

Este estudio, basado en una muestra de 93 productores de vino, desarrolla y pone a prueba, mediante un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales, concretamente el método de mínimos cuadrados parciales, un modelo conceptual de la influencia de los factores internos, los factores externos y las capacidades de relación con los socios en los resultados de exportación.

Los resultados revelan que los factores internos y las relaciones con los socios influyen en los resultados no económicos de la empresa, que a su vez influyen en los resultados económicos. Los resultados también muestran que los factores externos no afectan al rendimiento no económico ni al rendimiento económico. Además, los resultados muestran el efecto de moderación de la variable no económica. Los factores internos y las capacidades de relación tienen un impacto en el rendimiento económico que arroja el efecto de mediación del rendimiento no económico. En general, los factores internos y las capacidades de relación de las empresas son cruciales para lograr un mejor rendimiento de las exportaciones de las empresas vitivinícolas portuguesas.

Este estudio combina las teorías de SCP, RBV y la perspectiva relacional o de comportamiento para presentar un enfoque novedoso del rendimiento de las exportaciones, analizando las dimensiones externas e internas de la empresa en relación con el rendimiento financiero y no financiero.

This study aims to examine the effect of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on the export performance of apparel small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the role of multiple differentiation strategy as a mediation effect between their relationships. It has also investigated the moderation impact of export market category between EO and performance relationship. The multiple differentiation strategy comprises the product (PDD), customer (CTD), service (SVD) and brand (BDD) differentiations.

A cross-sectional survey was carried out by providing a questionnaire to senior managers and owners of the apparel SMEs from the developed and developing markets exporters. The primary data of 550 was treated by the partial least squares-structural equation modelling) technique for final analysis.

The study revealed EO’s positive and significant effect on SMEs’ export performance. The study has found the mediation effect of product, customer and brand differentiation strategies between EO and export performance relationships from the mediation analysis. In contrast, service differentiation has found no mediation effect. However, the moderation effect (export market category) has revealed an insignificant effect between EO and performance association.

The findings of this study are based on one country data analysis. This study has been conducted in the SMEs of the apparel industry in Bangladesh, considering only owners and senior-level managers of the firms.

This research has drawn the attention of managers/owners to EO and multiple differentiation strategies enhancing export performance from the developing country context, such as Bangladesh. Multiple differentiation as a competitive strategy is the pioneer application of mediating effect between EO and export performance relationships. Moreover, this research has investigated the effect of the export market category as a moderator. Dearth research has applied the export market category to investigate the moderation effect between EO-performance models. Therefore, current research has theoretical and practical contributions to the international entrepreneurship and strategic management literature.

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 paper is to analyze the influences of relational variables on export performance and the interactions among relational variables in the emerging market context of Malaysia.

The study used a mail questionnaire sent to Malaysian companies that export to Arab-speaking countries and achieved a response rate of 27.92 percent, resulting in a sample of 106 exporters.

The results of the path analyses indicate a positive impact of relational variables (adaptation, cooperation and communication) on export performance. However, the authors found that the impact was mediated by trust and commitment, rather than being direct.

The findings suggest that the impact of relational variables on export performance is complex and indirect. Mediators and moderators play important roles in this relationship.

Firms should invest in export relationships with the aim of building trust and commitment, which are the primary factors that affect export performance.

The authors have shed light on the way relational variables affect export performance. Moreover, this study contributes to a better understanding of small emerging markets, which are poorly represented in studies in this field.

The social media have enabled companies to reach out to global markets and provided them with the opportunity to customize their strategies and offerings in an unprecedented way. Given the scant empirical evaluation of social media use in the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) business-to-business (B-to-B) context, this paper aims to offer a comprehensive description of the antecedents and consequences of social media use in international B-to-B SMEs and the way in which this use affects their export performance.

This study uses a sample of 277 British B-to-B SMEs and uses positivist research with a quantitative approach, adopting a survey strategy through questionnaires and structural equation modeling.

The results reveal that the use of social media influences export performance through the quality of international business contacts – understanding customers’ views and preferences, brand awareness and knowledge of the competition in various international markets. This study contributes to the emerging literature on B-to-B SMEs digital marketing by determining the mechanism through which B-to-B SMEs may benefit from using the social media in their efforts to export.

Despite the promising potential of the social media, especially for export-oriented companies, very limited attention has hitherto been paid to the relationship between the use of social media and export performance. This study attempts to fill the gap by investigating the extent to which actual use of social media impacts on the performance of exporting firms.

It is well documented in the extant literature that knowledge plays a crucial role in small and medium enterprise (SME) internationalization. Exporting SMEs from developing economies faces many challenges, including lack of knowledge about institutions in foreign markets, inadequate knowledge about foreign institutions and limited internationalization knowledge (IK). However, research on the export performance of SMEs has thus far focused on the internationalization strategies of multinational corporations. This study aims to explore the effect of foreign market knowledge on SME export performance. The authors also assessed the moderating effect of employee absorptive capacity in the knowledge-performance nexus.

The authors adopted a survey design to collect data from owners/managers of SMEs exporters in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. A total of 350 questionnaires were distributed based on convenience. Of this number, 257 usable responses were used in the final analysis. The authors tested the proposed model using partial least squares-structural equation modeling.

The findings show that the three types of foreign market knowledge tested in this study, namely, foreign institutional knowledge (FIK), foreign business knowledge and IK have positive and significant effects on SME exporters’ performance. It also shows that employees’ absorptive capacity affects the relationship between FIK and SME exporters’ performance.

The study demonstrates the types of knowledge relevant to SME export performance. The study further demonstrates the moderating effect of employee absorptive capacity on the relationship between knowledge and export performance. The study advances existing knowledge on SME performance, especially from an emerging economy context.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of governance – a proxy for network effects on small and medium enterprises (SME) growth through access to new markets. Specifically, investigate how export intensity (EI) and performance are affected. This study also tests related theories, given the growth in the post-liberalization setting of a developing economy. Specifically, this study tests Uppsala and born global (BG) perspectives for internationalization and resource-based view for performance.

The authors collect secondary data for each SME over a 20 year period from a growth-oriented developing economy – India. This period is after the liberalization of the Indian economy. Thus, the authors test the hypotheses in this context. The authors expect that exports would surge for SMEs given the governance structures considered. The authors consider several governance modes and two types of product classifications, namely, products and services.

The authors find conditional support for the two models – indicating that governance structures do not consistently support finding new markets. Further, given the governance structure, EI is not consistently a means to improved performance. This is contrary to the expectations. However, at the same time, the authors do find evidence that governance matters and affects products and services differently.

While the authors conduct research in India which has a variety of cultures and state policies, the authors still believe comparative study with multi-country data from developing countries might bring further insights. Further, primary data would also help to understand governance and motivational effects (the authors did not consider the later). Implications: The authors believe the research will have implications for policy since the authors find effects of governance. Hence, specific policies that improve the performance of a governance type could be adopted.

Although SMEs are affected by many factors, the authors find significant effects for important variables. Hence, the authors believe the government could use the study to design proper policies so that new markets could be discovered through different governance forms, through strategic investment and capacity building.

SMEs are a key part of the social fabric of a society/country. The work deals with how SMEs could be helped. Hence, the authors believe the work has important implications for society. Further, as the work deals with large firm-SME interfaces, the authors also inform how these different governance structures are performing and where attention is needed.

The authors find that certain governance-type and SME-type work well together. Further, networks through the governance structures help find new markets – depending on SME-type. The authors find partial support for the Uppsala model and also for the BG model, again depending on the SME-type.

This article investigates the relationship between family ownership and export performance in the context of SMEs while also considering the moderating role of the financial dimension and, in particular, financial constraints and financial flexibility.

We select a sample of 1,132 Italian SMEs to examine through an econometric analysis the role and impact of family ownership and the financial moderating variables being used on their export performance.

The results indicate that there is a U-shaped relationship between family ownership and export performance: the highest levels of export performance correspond to the lowest and highest family ownership levels, whereas when a mixture of family and nonfamily ownership exists, the performance suffers because of “conflicting voices” dominating strategic visions and approaches, harming the firm's export commitment. Moreover, the findings show that lower financial constraints and/or stronger financial flexibility improve the relationship between family ownership and export performance.

Our findings show that the ownership structure is important for export performance; in particular, firms should avoid a mixture between family and nonfamily ownership because it is detrimental to export performance. Moreover, Italian SMEs need to develop sources of financing other than the banking channel, and policy makers should favour this process to overcome financial constraint problems and improve financial flexibility. Limitations concern the use of other econometric approaches and measurement variables to further investigate the connection between family ownership and export performance.

The present study enhances the comprehension of the complex relationship between family ownership and export performance by documenting the relevance of the level of family ownership and considering the moderating role of financial constraints and flexibility.