EXPANSION STRATEGIES FOR EXPORT

Managerial Outcomes, Marketing Capabilities, Market Orientation and Expansion Strategies in an Export Sales Context

Managerial Outcomes, Marketing Capabilities, Market Orientation and Expansion Strategies in an Export Sales Context

Introduction

Numerous factors influence export performance and unique strategies are needed to succeed in export markets (Cavusgil & Zou, 1994). Hence, firms need to employ the right combination of resources to optimize their export activities. Continued globalization of the world's economies and intensifying worldwide competition has stimulated an ever-increasing number of firms to internationalize. By far the most popular way for firms to engage with international markets is exporting (e.g., Leonidou and Katsikeas 2010), which now accounts for more than 25% of world gross domestic product (World Bank, 2008). Thus, any comprehensive answer to the increasingly important question of what drives firms' international competitiveness has to encompass the factors that affect firms' ability to compete in export markets (Cavusgil and Zou, 1994; Katsikeas et al. 2000). With this in mind, researchers have been exploring the drivers and performance outcomes of export marketing strategy for nearly 40 years (e.g., Lages et al. 2008; Leonidou et al. 2004). Within this rich research stream, studies have highlighted the importance of the link between firms' export strategy planning process and planned export marketing strategy content and their export market performance (for review see Sousa et al. 2008). However, the literature reveals almost no insights on the implementation of planned export marketing strategy.

Yet the general marketing literature posits that the effective implementation of planned marketing strategy is key to linking marketing efforts with firm performance (e.g., Olson et al. 2005; Vorhies and Morgan 2003; White et al. 2004). Further, in practice, implementing planned marketing strategy is widely seen as a problematic managerial task that consumes substantial time and effort resources but often ends in failure (Noble and Mokwa 1999; Sashittal and Jassawalla 2001; Thorpe and Morgan 2007). These problems may be even greater for managers dealing with international markets (e.g., Freedman 2003; Piercy 1998). For example, operating in export markets involves dealing with geographical distance along with psychic and familiarity disparities in terms of export market culture, business practices, channel structure, communications infrastructure, legal system, etc. (Bello and Gilliland 1997; Sousa and Bradley 2006). This makes detailed current market understanding and future market forecasting particularly difficult for export markets. All of these factors suggest that the effective execution of planned export marketing strategy is an even more challenging and risky task for the managers involved (e.g., Morgan et al. 2004).

Therefore, the lack of understanding of the nature, impact, and drivers of the effective implementation of firms' planned export marketing strategy constitutes an important gap in international competitiveness knowledge. Our study addresses this knowledge gap and differs from prior research in important ways that allow us to make three contributions to the literature. First, drawing on the implementation literature in marketing and management, we offer a new conceptualization and operationalization of export marketing strategy implementation effectiveness centered on two aspects that are key to understanding its relationship with firms' export performance: (1) internal implementation effectiveness, the firm's ability to use its available resources and skills to translate its intended ...