“…Relational resources refer to the ties between the firm and external stakeholders like customers, suppliers, and others like government institutions and competitors ( Davis and Mentzer, 2008 ). The quality of these relations–relationship quality–is commonly measured by the punctuality, trust, quality of communication, and commitment between the business partners ( Kuhlmeier and Knight, 2010 ; Leonidou et al, 2013 , 2014 , 2021 ; Bianchi and Abu Saleh, 2020 ). As found by diverse authors, strong and positive relationships with business partners and foreign customers positively influence SMEs’ export performance ( Lages et al, 2009 ; Ural, 2009 ; Celec and Globocnik, 2017 ; Haddoud et al, 2017 ; Hasaballah et al, 2019 ; Monteiro et al, 2019 ; Imiru, 2022 ).…”