Luis Filipe Lages

Relationship Capabilities, Quality, and Innovation as Determinants of Export Performance

The authors employ a resource-based view perspective to understand how a set of capabilities (organizational learning, relationship, and quality capabilities) influences product strategy (product quality and product innovation) and export performance (relationship performance and economic performance). Using two types of respondents from the same firm, they find strong support for the capability–strategy–performance link. The results indicate that managers should invest in relationship management capabilities to improve product innovation and product quality, which in turn leads to export performance enhancement. Furthermore, the findings reveal that though product quality is a critical aspect in international markets, both product innovation and relationship performance play a greater role in enhancing economic performance. The authors conclude with implications for international marketing theory and practice.

The STEP scale: a measure of short-term export performance improvement

This article is a direct response to a recent observation in the literature that managers appear to be short-term oriented in their assessment of the performance of an export venture (Madsen 1998). On the basis of a cross-national survey of exporting firms, the authors present a three-dimensional scale for assessing managerial judgment of short-term export performance (i.e., the STEP scale). The three dimensions are (1) satisfaction with short-term performance improvement, (2) short-term exporting intensity improvement, and (3) expected short-term performance improvement. The scale presents evidence of reliability as well as convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity, and it reveals factorial similarity and factorial equivalence across both samples. The authors outline managerial and public policy implications that stem from the scale and identify avenues for further export marketing research.

The relationship between export assistance and performance improvement in Portuguese export ventures: An empirical test of the mediating role of pricing strategy adaptation

Purpose – The article aims to test how pricing strategy adaptation to the foreign market mediates the relationship between export assistance and annual export performance improvement. It also aims to consider the effects of management international experience and export market competition.Design/methodology/approach – Structural equation modelling with WLS estimation is used to test the direct and indirect influences of the variables on short‐term export performance.Findings – Surprisingly, the findings reveal that the total effects of export assistance on annual export performance improvement are non‐significant, because although export assistance has a direct positive impact on performance, there is a negative indirect impact through export pricing strategy adaptation.Research limitations/implications – These surprising results suggest that future research is required to incorporate and test the intervening and indirect effects among variables.Practical implications – The findings also indicate that bot...

The Relationship between Buyer and a B2B e-Marketplace: Cooperation Determinants in an Electronic Market Context

In this article, the authors argue that cooperation may be achieved by adding technology dimensions to the core product. Given the growing importance of real time information exchange and interactivity, a better understanding of the use of technology to the establishment and development of the buyer-supplier cooperative relationships is essential for knowledge advancement. Using a sample of nearly 400 SMEs purchasing managers, this paper reveals that in an electronic market context, cooperation is positively affected by termination costs, supplier policies and practices, communication and information exchange, and negatively affected by product prices and opportunistic behavior. Moreover, both relationship commitment and trust play a major role in mediating the relationships between these five determinants and cooperation.

A Conceptual Framework of the Determinants of Export Performance

Abstract This paper examines existing knowledge in export marketing, dealing in particular with the relationship between internal and external factors, marketing strategy and export performance. The purpose of the paper is: (1) to expand on the nature of the links among these factors and (2) to shift contingencies on the marketing-performance relationship. Based on a combination of recent grounded findings in the field (Lages, 1999) and literature concerning the traditional approach to export performances determinants (Zou and Stan, 1998), a non-traditional perspective is presented. A conceptual framework is developed whereby the preceding years export performance, internal factors and external factors are shown as influencing the current years export performance through the degree of marketing program adaptation. Managerial implications and directions for further research are discussed.

The PD scale: a measure of psychic distance and its impact on international marketing strategy

Purpose – Despite considerable research on psychic distance (PD), research into the topic is confounded by a general failure to precisely define and fully operationalize the construct. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new measurement scale to assess psychic distance (the PD scale), and also to investigate the impact of the PD scale on the adaptation of international marketing strategies.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses data collected by mail questionnaire in a sample survey of 301 export firms. The results were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Various statistical tests show that the results are reliable and valid.Findings – Findings reveal that psychic distance is a higher‐order construct composed of two dimensions: country distance and people distance. The results also indicate that both dimensions of the PD scale are positively and significantly associated with cultural distance and the adaptation of product, promotion, pricing and distribution strategies to the foreign ...

The STRATADAPT scale: A measure of marketing strategy adaptation to international business markets

Purpose – The development of marketing strategies optimally adjusted to export markets has been a vitally important topic for both managers and academics for about five decades. However, there is no agreement in the literature about which elements integrate marketing strategy and which components of domestic strategies should be adapted to export markets. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new scale – STRATADAPT.Design/methodology/approach – Results from a sample of small and medium‐sized industrial exporting firms support a four‐dimensional scale – product, promotion, price, and distribution strategies – of 30 items. The scale presents evidence of composite reliability as well as discriminant and nomological validity.Findings – Findings reveal that all four dimensions of marketing strategy adaptation are positively associated with the amount of the firms financial resources allocated to export activity.Practical implications – The STRATADAPT scale may assist managers in developing better internat...

The Trade-Off Between Customer and Technology Orientations: Impact on Innovation Capabilities and Export Performance

Technological exporters are constantly challenged by the trade-off between two types of strategic orientations: customer and technology. Nonetheless, research directly addressing this topic is scarce, and few recommendations exist about the best orientation to emphasize. Using two respondents in the same firm, the export manager and the research-and-development manager, the authors find that customer orientation is as important as technological orientation in the development of exploratory innovation capabilities. However, when past performance is poor, customer orientation has a greater role. Exporters with poor past performance may achieve higher export performance levels by focusing more on customers than on technology. Conversely, firms performing well may risk export performance if they ignore technology orientation. These firms also need to maintain high levels of customer orientation.

Bringing Export Performance Metrics into Annual Reports: The APEV Scale and the PERFEX Scorecard

Annual company reports rarely distinguish between domestic and export market performance and even more rarely provide information about annual indicators of a specific export ventures performance. In this study, the authors develop and test a new measure for assessing the annual performance of an export venture (the APEV scale). The new measure comprises five dimensions: (1) annual export venture financial performance, (2) annual export venture strategic performance, (3) annual export venture achievement, (4) contribution of the export venture to annual exporting operations, and (5) satisfaction with annual export venture overall performance. The authors use the APEV scale to generate a scorecard of performance in exporting (the PERFEX scorecard) to assess export performance at the corporate level while comparatively evaluating all export ventures of the firm. Both the scale and the scorecard could help disclose export venture performance and could be useful instruments for annual planning, management, monitoring, and improvement of exporting programs.

Main Consequences of Prior Export Performance Results: An Exploratory Study of European Exporters

With the exception of the work of Lages and colleagues, the international marketing literature has been examining performance exclusively as a dependent variable. This exploratory study builds on this emerging body of literature to discuss the main outcomes of performance, as it is expressed through the perceptions of European export managers. According to the results of a cross-national study of Portuguese and British exporting firms, this paper indicates that the main consequences of previous performance results are: a) need to seek performance improvement as a result of bad performance, b) maintain strategy as a result of good performance, c) market diversification, d) focus on competition, e) product diversification, f) quality, and more attention to g) macro and h) micro factors. Future international marketing research is encouraged to investigate performance as an independent variable.