Collaborate at Home to Win Abroad: How Does Access to Local Network Resources Influence Export Behavior?

Abstract

By drawing on the resource‐based view and on elements from social network theory, we use a sample of southern Brazilian small and medium‐sized furniture manufacturers to find evidence for the hypothesis that access to local network resources, facilitated by a firm's membership in an industry association, strongly predicts the propensity to export. Likewise, we find that a firm's local collaborative intensity is positively related to its export intensity and that both relations are moderated by the firm's distance from the local network's center. This study contributes to the literature on how local collaboration may facilitate overcoming export barriers.

When do domestic alliances help ventures abroad? Direct and moderating effects from a learning perspective

“…Finally, we join recent literature examining the role of partner location in internationalization (e.g. AlLaham and Souitaris, 2008, Boehe, 2013, Lavie and Miller, 2008, Manolova et al, 2010and Yu et al, 2011 and respond to calls for research to further examine partner location as a key alliance criterion in entrepreneurial literature (Bruneel et al, 2010 andDas andHe, 2006).…”

Networks and export performance of agri-food firms: New evidence linking micro and macro determinants

“…In line with the previous studies (Bonaccorsi 1992;Calof 1994;Pla-Barber and Alegre 2007), the empirical model includes the firm size (Firm Size) approximated using the number of employees logarithm; a positive influence on the export performance is expected (Acedo and Jones 2007;Richter 2007;Boehe 2013). According to the resource-based view, the larger the firm, the more resources it has (Maurel 2009).…”

“…However, in reality, the cross-sectional data over several time periods provide a more realistic and useful information (Lee and Lim 2014). Therefore, we contribute to the literature by studying the business results of the internationalisation process for a very broad period, 1994-2012, since, as Chiao et al (2006) and Boehe (2013) highlight, longitudinal studies are more appropriate for capturing the dynamic nature of the internationalisation phenomenon of firms. The previous literature that has analysed the sector mostly focused on the descriptive and crosssectional research, and the use of micro-data with a dynamic view of the international process is rare (for example, Fernández and Díez 2015;Karelakis et al 2008;Maurel 2009;Fernández-Olmos 2011).…”

“…The inter-firm collaboration to enter foreign markets allows the firms to take advantage of the existing synergies by sharing costs and risks, promotes the access to resources and markets (Chetty and Blankenburg 2000) and is a particularly useful alternative for small firms during their internationalisation process (Ibeh 2005). From the resources and skills point of view, the firm networks can facilitate access to a wide variety of resources, such as the political influence, reputation, special skills, mutual trust, and so on (Coviello and Munro 1997;Johanson and Mattsson 1988;Boehe 2013). Cooperation helps the firms accumulate the required information on export markets, facilitates the product adaptation to the target market's needs and demands, and ultimately enhances the export performance (Karelakis et al 2008).…”

“…This measure of the export intensity has been widely used in the literature (Calof 1994;Zhou and Zou 2002;Fernández and Nieto 2006;Boehe 2013). As in the previous stage, the export to three target regions is taken into account: the EU, the OECD and the rest of the world.…”