5. Discussion and conclusion
5.1. Contributions to theory
This paper makes important contributions to academic knowledge in the following ways.
First, we complement the literature on the performance drivers of BG firms. As the markets BGs operate in appear to be among the most volatile and competitive, the need to outplay rivals increases in comparison with more stable markets. However, unlike more established companies, most BGs are SMEs that suffer from a lack of resources (Kuivalainen et al., 2012). Past research concluded that in order to operate successfully with the resources at hand, companies have to put a lot of emphasis on their decision-making processes (Nemkova et al., 2015). In line with that, it was found that the performance of BGs in international markets is strongly reliant on the way decisions are made by managers.
Second, following Fisher and Smith (2011, p. 325), who argue that ‘notions of control and predictability require serious revision’, we focus on agility as one of the core drivers of the superior international performance of BG firms. Agile firms are better able to cope with unpredictable changes in the environment and to seize market opportunities with speed and surprise (Bernardes & Hanna, 2009). The market success of agility was found to be conditional upon the human capital the company possesses. In terms of hard skills, knowledge of the ins and outs of the market and the extent of international experience were found to greatly enhance the benefits of agility. This is in line with the view of Liu (2017), who explains that international experience of the founders helps the BGs to mobilize knowledge resources in foreign markets. Regarding soft skills, managers put a lot of emphasis on learning orientation and ambiguity tolerance, with both being important for the improved performance in international markets. That enables managers to strengthen their ability to act efficiently under the international environment's conditions of high uncertainty (Galkina & Chetty, 2015).
