Export Market-Oriented Behavior and Export Performance: Quadratic and Moderating Effects under Differing Degrees of Market Dynamism and Internationalization

Abstract

In general, findings in the market orientation research stream indicate that market orientation has a positive linear relationship with business success, and managers have been urged to be more market oriented, regardless of the firm's current market orientation level. The authors develop a theory that predicts that the relationship between market orientation and business performance is an inverted U shape, such that high levels of market orientation may reduce performance. The authors’ empirical study of firms’ export market-oriented (EMO) activities in their export operations finds support for the hypothesized inverted U-shaped relationship between EMO behavior and export sales performance. They show that the inverted U-shaped relationship becomes greater in magnitude (more pronounced) as market dynamism increases and that the optimal value of EMO behavior (i.e., the value that generates the highest performance return) decreases as market dynamism increases and increases as exporting firms’ internationalization increases. Therefore, they conclude that management's task is not to aim for ever-increasing levels of market orientation but to manage market orientation so that its level is optimal given the firm's environment and the international diversification strategy being pursued.

International entrepreneurial orientation and regional expansion

“…Thus, the study captures degree of intensity and diversity of the firms' operations in regional African markets. We operationalize this construct using objective data on the number of African regions (e.g., Economic Community of West African States, Southern African Development Community) to which a firm exported its products or services (Cadogan et al, 2009), the number of African countries a firm exports to (Dai et al, 2015;Hultman et al, 2011), and the percentage of total annual sales accrued to a firm from its African export operations (Knight & Cavusgil, 2004). As indicated earlier, the regional expansion data came from finance managers or internal company archival sources, obtained eight months after IEO behaviors and international marketing channel management data were collected.…”

“…The notion of international new entry captures a firm's international scope (Dai et al, 2014), referred to as the scale and reach of firms' international operations. To this end, researchers have operationalized internationalization scope as the percentage of firms' foreign market revenues, number of country markets served, or number of geographic regions within which a firm competes with its products and services (Cadogan et al, 2009;Dai et al, 2014).…”

“…0.83 Regional Expansion Number of African regions (e.g., Economic Community of West African States, Southern African Development Community) to which a firm exports its products or services (Cadogan et al, 2009) 0.85 Number of African countries to which a firm exports products or services (Dai et al, 2015;Hultman et al, 2011).…”

Strategic goal accomplishment in export ventures: the role of capabilities, knowledge, and environment

“…The scores of these three elements were standardized and equally weighted to produce an aggregate score for degree of internationalization. The items were derived from Cadogan et al (2009).…”

Os Efeitos Negativos Da Experiência E Do Controle No Desempenho Do Vendedor

“…Os resultados quadráticos tendem a ajudar a explicar as relações lineares e são empregados nos estudos de marketing para explicar a lealdade (Agustin & Singh, 2005) e a orientação para o mercado (Cadogan, Kuivalainen, & Sundqvist, 2009). …”