Innovative capabilities: Their drivers and effects on current and future performance

This study investigates the role of a firm's orientation, both customer and competitor, in driving innovative capabilities and the impact of those capabilities on a firm's current and future performance. The study's contribution is threefold in that it (1) examines market-related exploitative and explorative capabilities in conjunction with product development exploitative and explorative capabilities in terms of their strategic drivers (firm orientation) and performance outcomes; (2) disentangles the effects of exploitative and explorative capabilities on current and future performance; and (3) examines the role of innovative capabilities within the particularly relevant, but understudied, context of exporting. The findings suggest that, although customer orientation relates to both exploitative and explorative capabilities, competitor orientation relates only to exploitative capabilities. Exploitative capabilities affect current performance, whereas explorative capabilities affect future performance. These findings are of crucial relevance to export managers in their quest to identify, extend, and create new market opportunities.     

Export Performance: Is It Possible through Knowledge and Capabilities? Evidence from Turkish Manufacturing Firms

Purpose: This article measures to what extent export performance is affected by certain resource-based view (RBV) elements and seeks to elucidate relationships between these elements. Design: Among those RBV elements, knowledge and experience as resources, and marketing, production, product development, logistics, and service differentiation as capabilities, are chosen to be the basis of this research. Their effects on export performance are measured with a survey applied to personnel of Turkish manufacturing firms operating in Istanbul district. Findings: The results show us that marketing planning capabilities and service differentiation capabilities have a significant effect on export performance. The overwhelming effect of knowledge and experience of firms on marketing planning capabilities is one of the intriguing findings. Notwithstanding that, we found no trace of a relationship between product development capabilities and service differentiation capabilities. Value: This research provides several managerial and academic implications by contributing to a resource-based view in terms of knowledge and capabilities. Additionally, in this study, it is underlined that collective knowledge is vital for achieving high export performance.     

The impact of proximity within elite corporate networks on the Shariah governance-firm performance nexus: Evidence from the global Shariah elite

Research shows the importance of social networks in the generation of valuable firm resources through informational flows. We extend this conceptualization to Shariah governance and the global Shariah elite as embodied by the Shariah supervisory board. Utilizing a unique dataset of 140 Islamic financial institutions over 2011–2015, across 16 nations, we find that interlocking behavior amongst Shariah supervisory boards is time-invariant and network proximity has an inverted U-shaped curvilinear impact on the performance of Islamic financial institutions. Our findings extend the academic literature on SSB interlocking behavior by disentangling the impact of network proximity on the Shariah governance-firm performance nexus.     

The Performance Advantages for SMEs of Product Innovation and Marketing Resource–Capability Complementarity in Emerging Economies

This study argues that small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) must possess both resources and capabilities at a superior level, and those resources and capabilities must be complementary with one another to achieve superior financial performance. The resources and capabilities of interest are product innovation and marketing. Using data from manufacturing SMEs, the results suggest that product innovation resource–capability complementarity, marketing resource–capability complementarity, and their interaction are positively related to financial performance through product innovation and customer performance. The findings suggest that some SMEs may outperform others not only because they possess a specific individual resource–capability complementarity but also because they create synergy and asset interconnectedness.     

Will the startup succeed in your eyes? Venture evaluation of resource providers during entrepreneurs' informational signaling

Experienced founders and investors are arguably the venture community members most likely to possess needed financial and social resources for startups. We present a model of venture evaluation where entrepreneurs solicit these resource providers for needed financial and social resources. Our model addresses how resource providers' venture investment propensity influences their evaluation of entrepreneurs' informational signals and how their venture evaluation predicts their willingness to provide financial and social resources. We test our model using real-time decisions and find resource providers with founding experience (both non-investor founders and investors with founding experience) leverage their investment propensity more than non-founder investors when evaluating new ventures. In addition, our post-hoc analysis reveals that resource providers' founding experience is associated with their willingness to confer social resources. Overall, this paper focuses on the perspective of resource providers and addresses how their investment propensity, types of venturing experience, and venture evaluation influence their willingness to render resource support to new ventures.     

Untangling the relationship between new venture internationalization and performance

To help untangle the inconsistency in prior performance studies for new venture internationalization, the dynamic capabilities perspective is revisited to consider whether the relationship is more complex than previously assumed. While internationalization requires the reconfiguration of routines and resources, survivability is argued to peak at moderate levels of internationalization where the associated resources and risk is balanced between local and foreign markets. In contrast, sales growth is suggested to peak at either low or high levels of internationalization where a singular market focus and set of capabilities is being exploited. The results confirm that the level of new venture internationalization exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship with survival, while the opposite U-shaped relationship exists with sales growth.     

Complementary effect of entrepreneurial and market orientations on export new product success under differing levels of competitive intensity and financial capital

The literature implies that entrepreneurial and market orientations are market-based resources that are essential for securing business success, but their performance impacts are unclear. In the specific field of export research, there is limited information on the interactive effect of these two market-based resources on export new product performance. Accordingly, the current study investigates the joint impacts of these two resources on export new product performance under differing levels of competitive intensity and financial capital. Using a survey of 212 British exporters, the study shows that seeking complementarity between entrepreneurial-oriented and market-oriented behaviors is a useful strategy for export new product success, especially when there is a suitably high level of competitive intensity in the export market environment, and when the export unit has greater access to financial capital. Theoretical and managerial implications of the results are discussed.     

Market orientation,product innovation and export performance: evidence from Chinese manufacturers

Based on resource-based view (RBV), this study examines the impact of marketing-related resource (market orientation) and innovation-related resources (innovation orientation and innovation resources) on exporters' performance (new product performance and overall export performance), as well as moderating role of environmental turbulence in the market orientation and export performance link. The questionnaire survey conducted among 220 manufacturing exporters reveals that there exist positive relationships among the constructs in question. This research departs from the majority of past research investigating the relationship among market orientation, product innovation and business performance in three aspects: (1) it examines the impact mechanism how market orientation improves new product performance and export performance through innovation orientation and innovation resources based on RBV, (2) it distinguishes among three constructs involved in product innovation activity, and (3) it extends the research from domestic markets to export markets. We conclude by discussing our contributions, the implications, and possible future extensions.     

The dyadic capabilities concept: examining the processes of key supplier involvement in collaborative product development

The increased use of suppliers in the new product development process has important implications for the strategic performance of organisations. In this paper an analysis of supplier collaboration in the development process is deployed to support the development of a dyadic (or two-level) capabilities analysis of the strategic management of the innovation process. By setting an organisation's competencies within the context of their customer or supplier interactions this paper supports the view posited by Ford et al. (1986) that interaction defines the value of assets and resources. In a study of collaboration in the UK auto industry, it was found that both operational and relational competences are critical factors in the performance of the new product development process. Thus, the ability of customers and suppliers to develop both structured and ad hoc processes of interaction is shown to be important to the development process from early supplier selection process.     

The Internet,Strategy and Performance: A Study of Australian Export Market Ventures

ABSTRACT

This study examines the impact of the Internet, firm-specific characteristics, market characteristics, and export marketing strategy on export marketing performance. The unit of analysis was an individual product/market export venture. Data were gathered via a self-administered mail survey of 315 Australian firms involved in exporting. The findings indicate that, when the Internet was used for communication purposes and to provide the firm with a competitive advantage, it had a significant impact on export marketing performance. Firm-specific characteristics and export marketing strategy also had a significant impact on export marketing performance.     

Breakthrough innovation in international business: The impact of tech-innovation and market-innovation on performance

The literature suggests that the greater the perceived novelty of a firm’s products and markets, the greater the potential value to the user (Lepak et al., 2007). In this study we analyze the extent to which breakthrough innovation (both tech-innovation and market-innovation) has a positive impact on both economic and strategic export performance. Tech-innovation incorporates technological developments to improve customer benefits versus existing alternatives in the market. Our findings reveal that tech-innovation has a positive impact on the economic and strategic export performance of firms. This relationship becomes stronger when more human resources are available and the exporter becomes more oriented toward the importer. In less competitive markets, the positive relationship between tech-innovation and both types of export performance becomes even stronger.Market-innovation occurs when the product concept or benefits depart from serving existing or conventional markets. Market-innovation was found to be negatively associated with strategic export performance, as it requires major learning effort by importers. This suggests that to create value, exporters need to develop solutions jointly with importers. Overall, these findings suggest that value creation in terms of both tech-innovation and market-innovation needs to involve importers to achieve expectations, thereby leading to improvement in a firm’s short-term and long-term export performance.     

What drives the export performance of small and medium-sized subcontracting firms? A study of Korean manufacturers

Building on the resource-based view and network theory, we propose and test a framework of export antecedents of subcontracting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Whereas the internationalization of firms has been extensively studied in general, little is known about what drives the exports of subcontracting SMEs which play a very important role in the manufacturing sectors of East Asian economies. These subcontracting firms operate under very different conditions from other companies, resulting in specific ways they leverage their resources, capabilities and customer networks. An analysis of survey data from 1733 subcontracting SMEs in three South Korean manufacturing industries reveals that the firms’ export orientation and export intensity are related not only to their technological resources and their executives’ managerial capabilities, but also to features of their subcontracting network ties. Our study suggests that due to the specific nature of their business, subcontracting firms’ internationalization antecedents need to be analyzed in the context of their business environment which is strongly shaped by their customer relationships.     

Technology commercialization, incubator and venture capital, and new venture performance

This study examines the effects of technology commercialization, incubator and venture capital supports on new venture performance from the resource-based view. This study uses regression analysis to test the hypotheses in a sample of 122 new ventures. The findings highlight the role of technology commercialization as a mediator between organizational resources, innovative capabilities, and new venture performance. Also, the empirical evidence indicates that incubator and venture capital supports moderate the effects of technology commercialization on the performance of new ventures. Finally, this study discusses managerial implications and highlights future research directions.     

The Effect of Flexibility on Export Venture Performance

Abstract

Although both international marketing theorists and practitioners have been expounding the importance of flexibility little or no research has been done to examine the effect of flexibility on export venture performance. Most of the research to date was directed towards examining the effect of flexibility on performance in the domestic context. Moreover, the studies in the literature also gave exclusive attention to the performance-enhancing effect of flexibility and ignored the moderating effects of organisational and environmental contingencies on the flexibility-performance relationship. This paper will present the results of a study that assessed the effect of flexibility on export performance.

The findings support the proposition that flexibility is significantly related to export performance but that environmental dynamism, legal forms of business ownership, international experience, control mechanism, and exporter-distributor cooperation have a moderating effect on the relationships between flexibility and export venture performance. The study also found that firms that were challenged by intense competitive rivalries, spent a lot of time and effort on monitoring foreign marketing activities, and had substantial cooperation with overseas distributors were more flexible in their manufacturing, marketing, financial, and organizational activities.     

Cognitive and Information‐Based Capabilities in the Internationalization of Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises: The Case of Croatian Exporters

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of information and cognitive‐based capabilities on the international performance as the main rationale behind successful internationalization. The study was conducted on a sample of 125 Croatian exporting small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), and results indicate that there is a significant influence of the cognitive and information‐based capabilities on the SME export performance. The results implicate the role of cognitive complexity as a platform for successful processing of foreign market intelligence which has value‐added impact on the SME's export performance.     

金融业扩张如何影响中国出口北大核心CSSCI

金融业扩张对中国各省份地区的出口活动及出口优势产生了怎样的影响效应,是迫切需要得到充分研究的重大问题。本文在利用2005年之后中国出台的一系列金融管制放松政策信息的基础上,构建了有效的工具变量,研究发现:金融业扩张与中国各省份地区出口活动之间呈显著的“倒U型”关系,由此揭示了中国背景下金融业扩张对地区出口扩张具有的非线性影响作用特征。进一步的机制检验发现,金融业扩张对中国各省份地区出口活动的“倒U型”关系影响效应,来源于金融业扩张对各地区相对成本优势的“倒U型”关系影响效应。其机制是,金融业扩张对工业部门的固定资产投资活动产生了突出的挤出效应,对制造业部门的工资水平产生了显著的“U型”关系影响效应,二者的叠加效应构成了金融业扩张对中国各省份地区相对成本优势的“倒U型”关系影响效应。本文为深入理解中国金融“脱实入虚”以及金融业过度扩张现象,及其对中国对外贸易所造成的负面效应和渠道机制,提供了依据。     

How do new ventures grow? Firm capabilities, growth strategies and performance

While new venture growth performance has been studied extensively, little work has been done to examine the complex strategic choices through which growth is pursued and attained. Building on the resource-based view and social capital perspective, this study develops a conceptual framework that links combinations of ventures' (1) technological, (2) financial, and (3) networking capabilities to different growth strategies in terms of organic growth, partnership, and acquisition. We further assess the mechanisms through which a new venture's growth choices affect firm performance. Using data from 238 new high-tech ventures in China, we find that new ventures with different resource combinations follow different growth strategies. While partnership growth leads to greater product diversity, and acquisition is more effective in realizing firm internationalization, both lead to a better chance of survival of new ventures. In addition, the study explicates the role of technological capability in moderating the relationship between growth strategies and new venture performance.     

The NEP Scale: A measure of network export performance

The interdependence between varying participants in exporting networks that has resulted from processes of globalization magnifies the inadequacies of using single-item measures and internally oriented perspectives to assess export performance. In order to overcome these concerns, we developed a network export performance (NEP) scale using as a basis network theory, a diversity of network-oriented indicators and different types of respondents. The final multi-dimensional NEP Scale includes 25 items grouped into five dimensions: (a) overall export venture performance, (b) relationship performance with the importer versus competitors, (c) relationship performance with the supplier, (d) product quality performance of the supplier, and (e) importer's satisfaction with the quality of the supplied product. Findings reveal that the flow of communication and interaction within exporting networks is positively and significantly associated with all of the five dimensions of the NEP Scale. Discussion centers on implications of this scale to network theory, international business, and to the managerial development of exporting strategies. The article closes with directions for future research.     

组织知识、跨部门协调与新产品创新绩效

组织的知识包括顾客知识、竞争者知识、技术知识等不同类型,不同类型的知识在新产品创新过程中起着不同的作用,并且会受到跨部门协调的影响。本研究基于长三角地区143家企业的问卷调查数据,实证考查了不同类型的组织知识是如何影响企业新产品创新绩效的,及跨部门协调在二者关系中的调解作用。结果表明（1）顾客知识对新产品市场表现有显著正向影响,但对新产品创新效率没有显著影响;（2）竞争者知识对新产品创新效率有显著正向影响,但对新产品市场表现没有显著影响;（3）技术知识对新产品市场表现和创新效率都有显著正向影响;（4）跨部门协调正向调解技术知识与创新绩效的关系。研究结果对于企业怎样提升新产品创新绩效具有重要的启示意义。     

Leveraging firm-level marketing capabilities with marketing employee development

Using the theoretical foundations of the resource-based view of the firm, this study develops and measures marketing employee development capabilities and investigates how it moderates the relationships between brand and customer relationship management capabilities and firm performance outcomes. Based on a random sample survey of chief marketing executives from selected industries, combined with objective firm performance indicators and controls, results demonstrate that marketing employee development capabilities can leverage the relationships between firm-level marketing capabilities and customer satisfaction, market effectiveness, and objective financial performance. Further, these results show that such capabilities can be complementary and, in some cases, even substitute for each other, which improves organizational performance. Implications for researchers and marketing managers are discussed.