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Export marketing strategy implementation, export marketing capabilities, and export venture performance

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Abstract

Since exporting is the most popular mechanism by which firms engage with international markets, understanding the drivers of export market performance is key to explaining firms’ international competitiveness. The literature posits that the effective implementation of planned export marketing strategy is a key determinant of the performance of firms operating in international markets. Yet little is known about the specific nature and drivers of export marketing strategy implementation effectiveness. In this study we build on the implementation literature in marketing and strategic management to develop a new conceptualization of export marketing strategy implementation effectiveness. Drawing on dynamic capabilities theory, we empirically examine the export marketing capability antecedents and performance consequences of export marketing strategy implementation effectiveness in the context of manufacturing firms that are exporting to international markets. Results indicate that effective implementation of planned export marketing strategy contributes to export market and financial performance, and that marketing capabilities play an important role in enabling effective marketing strategy implementation in export venture operations.

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Notes

  1. We also allow for the possibility of direct effects by including additional paths to export performance in our hypothesis testing model.

  2. Since more fine-grained industry classifications did not add any additional insight in our subsequent analyses we use this business-type classification to maximize the parameter-to-sample size ratio in our hypothesis testing model. We also collected data on firm size but found this to be unrelated to any of the constructs in our model.

  3. Comparison of responses for more successful, averagely successful, and less successful export ventures indicated the presence of significant mean differences in performance in the expected direction among the three groups.

  4. Consistent with previous studies (e.g., Bello et al. 2010; Morgan et al. 2004; Zou and Cavusgil 2002), we employed perceptual measures of performance because company financial statements do not report objective performance data at the product market level (Katsikeas et al. 2000). Further, measurement difficulties inherent in certain objective measures of performance may raise comparability concerns (e.g., profitability is contingent on internal accounting practices such as depreciation and overhead allocation). Day (1994) contend that managerial decisions and actions are primarily driven by perceptions of firm performance rather than by objective, absolute performance ratings. There is also empirical evidence (Dess and Robinson 1984; Venkatraman and Ramanujam 1987) suggesting that perceptual measures produce reliable and valid assessments of performance.

  5. When the path between internal and external implementation effectiveness is dropped from the model, the direct path between architectural marketing capabilities and external implementation effectiveness is strong and positive.

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Acknowledgment

The authors wish to thank Saeed Samiee, Rebecca Slotegraaf, and Shaoming Zou for their constructive comments and suggestions on this research project and earlier versions of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, 1309 East Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405-1701, USA

    Neil A. Morgan

  2. University of Leeds, Leeds University Business School, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Constantine S. Katsikeas

  3. School of Business Administration, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS, 38677, USA

    Douglas W. Vorhies

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  1. Neil A. Morgan
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  2. Constantine S. Katsikeas
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  3. Douglas W. Vorhies
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Correspondence to Neil A. Morgan.

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Morgan, N.A., Katsikeas, C.S. & Vorhies, D.W. Export marketing strategy implementation, export marketing capabilities, and export venture performance. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 40, 271–289 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-011-0275-0

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