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Dancing to success: export groups as dance parties and the implications for network development

Ian Wilkinson (Foundation Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, University of Western Sydney, Nepean, New South Wales, Australia)
Louise C. Young (Senior Lecturer, School of Marketing, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)
Denice Welch (Associate Professor of International Management, Norwegian School of Management, Sandvika, Norway)
Lawrence Welch (Professor of International Marketing, Norwegian School of Management, Sandvika, Norway and Adjunct Professor, Department of Marketing, University of Western Sydney, Nepean, New South Wales, Australia)

Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing

ISSN: 0885-8624

Article publication date: 1 December 1998

871

Abstract

Export grouping schemes are a commonly used vehicle for promoting international competitiveness, but their success rate is patchy. A perennial problem is the value of continuing the formal group structure itself. In this paper we examine the nature and role of export groups using the results from two in‐depth Australian case studies. The focus of analysis is on export groups as structuring devices rather than structures. They are viewed as action learning exercises in which knowledge and resource creating and self‐organizing processes are nurtured, these processes in turn shaping the evolution of interfirm relations and networks. Building on earlier work by Wilkinson and Young the dance metaphor is extended to depict and analyze export groups as dance parties. Dance themes are used to illustrate and dramatize issues arising in the design, development and evaluation of export grouping schemes and are related to the real experience of the two case studies examined.

Keywords

Citation

Wilkinson, I., Young, L.C., Welch, D. and Welch, L. (1998), "Dancing to success: export groups as dance parties and the implications for network development", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 13 No. 6, pp. 492-510. https://doi.org/10.1108/08858629810246788

Publisher

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MCB UP Ltd

Copyright © 1998, MCB UP Limited

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