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The purpose of this paper is to investigate several concepts of inward and outward internationalization and their impact on export performance in the context of Malaysian manufacturing exporting firms.

Mail survey was administered to gather data from the Malaysian manufacturing firms that have been identified to have business export trading to the major oil and gas producer countries in the Middle East. A total of 120 respondents were received and further analysis was tabulated.

Findings revealed that the outward internationalization is positively related to economic and non-economic measures of export performance. It indicates that an outward internationalization related to organizational capability has a major contribution to the export performance of Malaysian manufacturing and exporting firms. On the other hand, top management international orientation as an inward internationalization is negatively and significantly associated with economic measures, but not in the non-economic measures of the export performance.

The cross-sectional nature of this study may have limitations with respect to examining the direction and causality of some of the variables. The findings are limited to Malaysian manufacturing firms exporting to targeted markets. The significant of this study emanates from its expected theoretical implications to knowledge and practical implications to business and public organization. It lends support to the internationalization theory and contributes to a firm’s performance and enhances their export marketing knowledge with useful implications for international and relationship marketing.

The results support the proposition that internationalization of firms from emerging nations are dependent on learning, acquiring and applying the knowledge from other firms particularly from firms originating from advanced developed nations.