Abstract
This study finds that the form of relationship between export strategies – entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and export market orientation (MO) – and export sales performance is curvilinear and dependent on levels of intra-firm resource coordination capabilities. Findings from primary data drawn from new international ventures reveal that increased changes in combined EO and MO strategies lead to decreases in export sales performance. Results further indicate that when levels of resource coordination flexibility and MO are higher the effect of EO on performance is strengthened. However, when levels of MO increase in magnitude along with higher levels of resource coordination flexibility, the levels of sales performance decrease. A natural conclusion to draw is that new international ventures that develop their MO resources and align these with their intra-firm resource coordination competencies will fully realize the export sales benefits of their EO activities.
1. Introduction
International business literature identifies export entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and export market orientation (MO) as important strategic orientations that are beneficial for sales performance in export markets (e.g., Boso, Cadogan, & Story, 2012; Murray, Gao, & Kotabe, 2011). Specifically, EO is a market-driving explorative capability (Hughes, Hughes, & Morgan, 2007) “characterized by search, discovery, experimentation, risk taking and innovation [in foreign markets]” (He & Wong, 2004, p. 481). MO is an informationprocessing capability that draws heavily on a market-driven exploitative logic to fuel business success (Jaworski, Kohli, & Sahay, 2000). As an exploitative behavior, MO provides a buffer against the shocks and risks associated with EO. Taken together, EO and MO play complementary roles in shaping firm sales performance (Boso et al., 2012).
6. Discussion, conclusion, and future research directions
The international business literature encourages firms to develop high levels of export EOB and export MOB to boost their sales performance in export markets. However, this study suggests that while export EOB and MOB activities are important for export success, what is more important is how firms can maximize the economic value of these two strategic orientations. While some empirical works have explored the complexity of the relationship between some of the orientations (i.e., EO) and performance (e.g., Lisboa et al., 2016), this extends prior research by exploring the form of the relationship between EOB and MOB and export performance. By so doing, this study exposes the importance of paying attention to the optimum levels of the two orientations, and to the moderating role of structural contingencies in conditioning the performance outcomes of the orientations.
