دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی عوامل تعیین کننده داخلی و خارجی عملکرد صادراتی - وایلی 2018

The internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has been the focus of numerous studies. However, while the attention has thus far been on SMEs operating in developed countries, firms evolving in a developing context, including Africa, have been largely neglected. To address this, and drawing on a dual resources-based and network-based view, this study simultaneously investigates the importance of internal and external resources for firms’ export performance and regularity in the context of North African SMEs. Using a sample of Algerian exporters, the study reveals the superiority of discrete resources for boosting export performance and export regularity. These findings provide directions to Algerian SME managers and policymakers as to important factors driving the internationalization process in the developing Algerian context.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS

Drawing on a dual resource-based and network-based view, a comprehensive model outlining the critical internal and external resource factors driving SMEs’ export performance and regularity is proposed. The model was empirically tested with data from 103 exporters operating in Algeria, the largest African country. This sample is considered as highly representative of the existing limited population of Algerian exporters. As this is the first study considering this country, we contribute to the special issue by offering novel and comprehensive evidence from Algeria. Overall, the results indicate that export behavior is affected by the context where firms operate. Exporters in Algeria are driven by different factors in comparison with counterparts in the developed world. For example, while the export literature has emphasized the role of technological and innovative resource factors in improving SMEs’ export performance (Díez-Vial & Fernández-Olmos, 2013; Moini, 1995), the present study highlighted that Algerian exporters’ performance is instead driven by local relational resources, marketing capabilities, and managerial resources. Often lacking capital and mainly exporting low-tech products, Algerian SMEs do not necessarily require high technology and innovation capabilities to be internationally competitive. These SMEs, by contrast, rely on locally available and inexpensive resources to exploit foreign-market opportunities (Boehe, 2013). Furthermore, the study has investigated the predictors of SMEs’ export regularity, a dimension often neglected by previous studies (Cadot et al., 2014; Deng et al., 2014; Fu & Wu, 2014). In this respect, relational resources through foreign buyers were considered crucial for SMEs’ regularity in exporting.