دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی ارزیابی مدیرتی عملکرد صادراتی و بازتاب آنها - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

Export performance is often measured by managers’ subjective assessments, but little is known about what such assessments reflect. This article addresses this gap in the literature by analyzing the association between subjective and objective measures of export performance. We examined which aspects managers take into consideration when subjectively assessing the export performance of their firm. We also examined whether managers’ assessments had any predictive power concerning the future development of their firm’s export sales. Our empirical evidence is based on Norwegian small and medium-sized enterprises operating mainly in business-to business markets. Our analyses show that managers’ subjective assessment of export performance at the firm level is significantly associated with the percentage of the total firm sales that are exported. This is true for assessments of economic as well as non-economic performance. Subjective assessments, however, were not associated with actual export sales levels or with export growth.

5. Discussion and recommendations

More than 50 different measures of export performance were identified by Sousa (2004), most of which were different subjective assessments made by managers. The recent review by Chen et al. (2016) report more widespread use of objective measures, but still that 53 difference measures of export performance is used in 124 empirical studies. This diversity represents a challenge for research aimed at understanding the concept itself as well as the factors driving export performance. In the next sections, we will discuss our basic research question concerning what managers actually measure when using subjective performance measures. It should be noted that our empirical study is confined to SME exporters. This fact may have an impact on managers’ ability to forecast future development in the firm’s export activities. One argument is that managers in large companies compared to managers in SMEs typically have much better developed formal knowledge about market development and performance and that such managers’ subjective assessments of export performance will therefore be of higher quality. However, managers in SMEs are much closer to everyday developments and could therefore be argued to be much better equipped to evaluate future export performance. Regardless of the arguments, the reader should be aware that our study and the results are based on SME managers.