Studying resource and capability effects on export venture performance

While extant research has welcomed the resource and capability perspectives as valuable lenses to study international business phenomena, there have been scant attempts to study the role of comprehensive sets of firm resources and capabilities on different aspects of export venture performance and even less the role of their interactions. This study examines the impact of experience, scale of operation and financial resources as well as informational, customer relationship and product development capabilities on dimensions of export venture performance. The results suggest an interesting role of knowledge factors. Each one of experience and informational capabilities has a U-shaped effect on export venture performance, while their interaction negatively impacts the same, denoting that the two factors are antagonistic. Scale of operation and financial resources have a U-shaped and a negative effect respectively on adaptability only, while neither customer relationship nor product development capabilities directly influence export venture performance. Finally, the interaction of product development with informational capabilities has a positive impact only on efficiency. Practitioners are offered specific suggestions as to where they should place emphasis when pursuing particular performance objectives.     

The cumulative nature of the entrepreneurial process: The contribution of human capital,planning and environment resources to small venture performance

The study is theoretically grounded in the resource-based view and applied to a service industry-tourism. It examined the performance of small ventures by utilizing an integrated dynamic model of entrepreneur choices and resource accumulation. Each phase in the process is added to previous one. Findings from 305 small tourism ventures revealed that the human capital of the entrepreneur, particularly managerial skills, were the greatest contributing factor to performance. This was followed by venture type. The study illustrates the unique nature of the entrepreneurial process among small ventures, often defined as “lifestyle businesses”.     

Capabilities and competitive tactics influences on performance: Implications of the moment of entry

This article examines the implications that the moment of market entry has for the effect of capabilities and competitive tactics on firm performance, using a sample of 253 companies from the information and communications technology industry. The results show that technical capabilities and low cost orientation are learning factors in the firms' performance, regardless of the moment of entry into the market. The study shows how the two perspectives of competitive strategy and resource-based view complement each other to incorporate different competitive factors in a coherent model for the study of entry timing. The study takes the sustainability model of competitive advantage further, by demonstrating that certain capabilities and competitive tactics can allow pioneers and early followers to achieve and maintain superior performance in a dynamic, hostile and with high level of imitation industry. This study also shows that the availability of a combination of marketing capabilities and low cost orientation will allow late followers' firms to take advantage of early entrants' mistakes.     

The performance implications of outsourcing customer support to service providers in emerging versus established economies

Recent discussions in the business press query the contribution of customer-support outsourcing to firm performance. Despite the controversy surrounding its performance implications, customer-support outsourcing is still on the rise, especially to emerging markets. Against this backdrop, we study under which conditions customer-support outsourcing to providers from emerging versus established economies is more versus less successful. Our performance measure is the stock-market reaction around the outsourcing announcement date. While the stock market reacts, on average, more favorably when customer-support is outsourced to providers located in emerging markets as opposed to established economies, approximately 50% of the outsourcing firms in our sample experience negative abnormal returns. We find that the shareholder-value implications of customer-support outsourcing to emerging versus established economies are contingent on the nature of the customer support that is being outsourced and on the nature of the outsourcing firm. Customer-support outsourcing to emerging markets is less beneficial for services that are characterized by personal customer contact and high knowledge embeddedness than for customer-support services that involve impersonal customer contact and are low on knowledge embeddedness. Firms higher in marketing resource intensity and larger firms benefit more from outsourcing customer-support services to emerging markets than firms lower in marketing resource intensity and smaller firms.     

Employees: The key link to corporate reputation management

Employees and corporate reputation are unique resources that generate positive financial performance and ultimately create sustainable competitive advantage. Corporate reputation is vital to the organization, and employees are the key link to managing it. By recognizing the synergistic role that employees can play in the overall positioning of corporate reputation, management can obtain significant achievements in terms of satisfying corporate strategic objectives. Initiatives essential to gain employee commitment to corporate reputation enhancement are examined, along with the use of the balanced scorecard to integrate corporate reputation metrics into the incentive system.     

How personal and organizational drivers impact on SME international performance: The mediating role of organizational innovation

This article develops and tests a conceptual model to identify the impact of internal drivers (personal and organizational) on the international performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm and its capability extensions, it is argued that the effect of drivers is mediated by organizational innovation. To test the proposed theoretical model, we collected data from 120 exporting SMEs in Portugal. Results show that the indirect mediating effect of innovation is particularly relevant with regard to the organizational driver-performance link. Insights contribute to research on the importance of innovation for capability and resource deployment during internationalization.     

Technological opportunism effects on IT adoption,intra-firm diffusion and performance: Evidence from the U.S. and Spain

The paper pursues a joint analysis of the direct influence of the level of a firm's technology opportunism capability on performance and on the adoption and intra-firm diffusion of Internet-based technologies. The study here examines the mediating effect that intra-firm diffusion exerts on the relationship between capabilities and performance. This study uses the results from a survey of 100 Spanish and 109 American franchise firms. Results indicate that the firm's level technological opportunism influences the adoption and intra-firm diffusion of technology and also has a positive impact on performance. While intra-firm diffusion is a driver of performance, adoption has no influence. Finally the indirect impact of technological opportunism on performance differs across countries. While for American firms, the integration of technologies into activities that related to communication with partners has a positive impact on performance; Spanish managers should focus on the integration of these technologies into back-end functionalities.     

Market pioneers, late movers, and the resource-based view (RBV): A conceptual model

Lieberman and Montgomery note that “…we see benefits from linking empirical findings on first-mover advantages with the complementary stream of research on the resource-based view of the firm” (1998, p. 1111); they suggest that such a link will help explain differences in firm performance. Therefore, this study develops a conceptual framework linking FMAs with the resource-based view of the firm (RBV); in doing so, this framework explains the links between entry timing, resource management, and firm performance. Specifically, this study examines FMAs in light of a four-step resource management process [Morgan RM. Relationship marketing and marketing strategy: the evolution of relationship strategy within the organization. In: Sheth JN, Parvatiyar A, editors. Handbook of Relationship Marketing. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, 2000. p. 481–504.; Morgan RM, Hunt S. Relationship-based competitive advantage: the role of relationship marketing in marketing strategy. J Bus Res 1999; 46 (November): 281–90.] consisting of: 1) efficient acquisition (EA), 2) bundling/combining (BC), 3) positioning (POS), and 4) maintenance/protection (MP). The link between FMAs and the resource management process helps explain why so few first movers retain their advantages.     

The dynamic impact of innovative capability and inter-firm network on firm valuation: A longitudinal study of biotechnology start-ups

Prior research suggests that a high technology start-up's innovative capability and inter-firm network influence its performance and consequently, firm valuation. Few studies consider their joint influence and even fewer consider the temporal change of those effects on firm valuation. In this study, we propose that firm age, a key organizational variable, represents both the development of organizational routines from a start-up's perspective and the accumulation of accessible information from an investor's viewpoint. As such, an investor's evaluation of a high technology start-up's innovative capability and inter-firm network evolves with firm age. Using panel data of 170 biotechnology start-ups, our results suggest that the relative value of network status declines while the impact of innovative capability increases with firm age. Interestingly, there is a growing complementary effect of innovative capability and network heterogeneity on firm valuation. The implications of these findings for entrepreneurial practice and theories of firm capabilities and inter-firm network are discussed.     

The causal effect of institutional quality on outsourcing

We empirically investigate the relationship between institutional quality and outsourcing to developing economies. To examine the within-country time trend, in contrast to previous cross-sectional studies, this article constructs a time-varying industry-based outsourcing proxy for 89 countries over 25 years (1980–2004). The resulting panel data allow us to identify the causal relationship by controlling for the fixed effects and dynamic factors. We find a significant positive effect of local institutional improvements on outsourcing within lower-middle income countries. In low, upper-middle and high income developing countries, institutional quality is not an important determinant of international outsourcing.     

服务外包企业人才管理水平指标权重研究

人才短缺已日益成为我国服务外包业发展的瓶颈,而解决这一问题的关键在于加强对服务外包企业人才管理能力的评估,改善人才管理中的薄弱环节,提高人才使用效益。本文改进了层次分析法,并借助评估模型对服务外包企业的人才管理水平进行了评估,对服务外包企业提高其人才管理水平具有较高的实用价值。     

The Resource-Based View within the Export Context: An Integrative Review of Empirical Studies

Despite widespread research on the resource-based view (RBV) in exporting, there is a lack of any integrative review of the empirical studies connected to resources and capabilities in the extant literature. To address this gap, this study offers a comprehensive review of 129 export-related articles published between 1990 and 2016. Relevant articles were examined through content analysis in terms of the scope of research, research methodology, and conceptual issues. Certain limitations related to the scope of research are identified, particularly with regard to country setting, industry effect, and firm size. Methodologically, the sampling designs, data collection methods, and analytical approaches employed have attracted criticism. The results also demonstrate that, in spite of significant progress in the pertinent literature with respect to conceptual issues, research on the RBV within the export context is still at the stage of identification and conceptualization. This study is expected to contribute considerably to the pertinent body of knowledge by presenting a comprehensive literature review focusing on the RBV. This study also provides new insights by investigating the trends in the evolution of the RBV and by demonstrating the research gaps in the field of exporting which were not addressed by previous academic research.     

Examining the Nature and Effects of Psychological Contract: Case Study of an Indian Organization

This study investigates psychological contract contents and the effects of different types of psychological contracts on the work outcomes of employees in an Indian organization. Analysis of case study interviews and secondary data suggests that employee expectations can be categorized into relational and transactional psychological contracts. The contents of these contracts, while largely similar to those in the West, reflected certain aspects that are unique to the sociocultural context of employment relationships in India. Further, the fulfillment or breach of these psychological contracts led to different effects on work outcomes. Relational psychological contracts affected long‐term affective work outcomes, such as prosocial work behaviors, psychological ownership, and engagement. Transactional psychological contracts had stronger effects on turnover intentions and attitude to work. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The ties that bind us: examining relationship marketing orientation and its impact on firm performance in the information systems outsourcing services sector

The objective of this study is to analyze the adoption of a relationship marketing orientation (RMO) by firms in the information systems (IS) outsourcing service sector. The study frames RMO as a hierarchical, reflective construct which models seven dimensions including bonding, communication, empathy, harmonious conflict resolution, shared value, trust, and reciprocity. A sample of 114 senior executives from firms in the IS outsourcing industry in Hong Kong were obtained from a survey. Empirical analysis via structural equation modeling confirms the hierarchical, seven construct reflective structure of the RMO model, and the high levels of a firms’ RMO lead to a direct positive impact on firm performance outcomes. The findings provide valuable managerial insights for measuring and managing an RMO in the IS outsourcing sector, and professional services generally. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed along with future research directions of the study.     

Examining the impact of managerial involvement with social media on exporting firm performance

The growth of social media presents international businesses and marketers with unprecedented risks and challenges. Marketers are becoming aware of the threat of losing control over their message and are also beginning to realize the potential of social media as a marketing tool. Based on export managers’ beliefs about social media use outcomes, as well as their attitudes, intention to use, and actual use of these applications of Web 2.0, three groups of Spanish exporters are identified according their managerial involvement with social media tools: ‘potential in SM’, ‘initiated in SM’, and ‘expert in SM’. Considering other firm characteristics and type of sector, these three clusters of exporting firms are fully characterized and their relationship with firm performance is determined. From these results, relevant implications emerge for academic researchers, entrepreneur-managers and policy-makers.     

江苏服务外包战略选择:基于钻石理论视角的分析

发展服务外包已成为现代服务业的一个重要内容,已成为江苏当前优化产业结构、转变经济增长方式的一个重要内容。本文从江苏服务外包现状及问题出发,基于钻石理论视角剖析其自身优势及其与上海的比较分析,探讨了江苏服务外包的未来战略选择。     

Evaluating sponsorship through the lens of the resource-based view: The potential for sustained competitive advantage

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has become a prominent management theory that firms can use to analyze resources as potential sources of competitive advantage. Theorists have suggested sponsorship of sport properties as one such resource, yet specific cases of sponsorship's role in a firm's achievement of a sustained advantage over competitors have yet to be explored. This article illuminates the case of Visa's longstanding global sponsorship of the Olympic Games, which was initiated and leveraged to counteract competitor American Express’ advantage with global business travelers. Evidence is presented that supports Visa's achievement of a competitive advantage during the term of the sponsorship. The case is then used to develop a conceptual model based on the RBV to identify the key characteristics of sponsored properties capable of assisting the sponsoring firm in achieving a sustained competitive advantage. From a managerial perspective, the model is designed to assist marketing managers tasked with the identification and evaluation of potential sponsorship properties.     

国际生产折衷理论的局限及进一步发展的新视角

国际生产折衷理论等主流理论对跨国公司对外投资行为的解释力存在局限性。国际生产折衷理论应吸收资源基础论和企业网络理论的合理内核,从而使理论的解释力更强,并更具动态性和生命力。     

The mediating role of alliances in the international market orientation-performance relationship of smes

Enhancing international performance is a critical issue for internationalizing SMEs. Researchers have suggested that firms need to enhance their international market orientation (IMO) in order to increase performance; but the way this association works is rather unexplored. This is important for both theory and practice since its exploration would lead to a better understanding on how SMEs can effectively enhance their international performance. In this paper, we examine whether alliances through which firms access knowledge and resources play a mediating role in the IMO and performance relationship. We investigate our hypothesis on a sample of 94 companies based in the United Arab Emirates. We discovered that alliances mediate the IMO-performance relationship and we extend the knowledge- and resource-based views of the firm.     

Once upon a time in a foreign market: The role of cultural distance in the economic performance of multilateral non-equity partnerships

As a consequence of globalization and advancements in technology, international collaborations, which bring together partners from different cultural backgrounds, have become increasingly prominent in the business world. While several studies have examined the impact of cultural distance on the performance of such partnerships, they have tended to focus on bilateral relationships, and the results they have produced are conflicting. By building on the resource-based view and distinguishing the differences between the concepts of cultural distance among partners and the cultural distance of partnerships from target markets, the present study provides insights into the role of cultural distance in the performance of multilateral project-based non-equity collaborations. Drawing on a sample of 1183 movies that were released in the U.S. between the years 2000 and 2020, this study demonstrates that while projects co-produced by culturally distant partners have yielded higher revenues, the cultural distance of partnerships from target markets can have a negative impact on economic performance. Furthermore, the results show that partnerships formed with firms that originated in countries that have greater diversity perform better in the target market, and such partnerships manage cultural distance more efficiently.