Internationalization's effect on marketing learning: A study of Syrian firms

The aim of the present study is to understand the effects of international expansion on firms' acquisition of marketing learning. This study's focus on marketing learning complements previous research on the impact of internationalization on the development of foreign-market and technological knowledge. The research finds that the scope of a firm's international activities, perception of gaps in marketing knowledge, and external social capital positively influence firms' acquisition of marketing learning. However, firm's age at initial international market entry appears not to be a significant factor. The study adds to the very limited body of research on the marketing learning outcomes of international expansion, while also offering rare empirical insights from the Middle East on this important subject matter. The paper discusses implications for international managers, policy makers, and future researchers.     

How Focused are the World’s Top-Rated Business Schools on Educating Women for Global Management?

Persuaded by the observed positive link between the flow of appropriately skilled and trained female talent and female presence at the upper echelons of management (Plitch, Dow Jones Newswire February 9, 2005), this study has examined current trends on women’s uptake of graduate and executive education programs in the world’s top 100 business schools and explored the extent to which these business schools promote female studentship and career advancement. It contributes by providing pioneering research insight, albeit at an exploratory level, into the emerging best practice on this important aspect of business school behavior, an area which is bound to become increasingly appreciated as more global economic actors wise up to the significant diseconomies inherent in the under-utilization of female talent, particularly in the developing world. Among the study’s main findings are that female graduate students averaged 30% in the sample business schools, a figure not achieved by a majority of the elite schools, including some of the highest ranked. Only 10% of these business schools have a specialist center for developing women business leaders, and only a third offered women-focused programs or executive education courses, including flextime options. A higher, and increasing, percentage of business schools, however, reported offering fellowships, scholarships or bursaries to prospective female students, and having affiliations with pro-women external organizations and networks that typically facilitate career-promoting on-campus events and activities. The implications of the foregoing are discussed, replete with a call on key stakeholder groups to more actively embrace the challenge of improving the supply of appropriately trained female talent, or top management prospects. Future research ideas are also suggested.     

The internationalization of African firms: Opportunities,challenges, and risks

There has been a marked increase in the internationalization activities of African firms over the last two decades or so, resulting in the emergence of regional challenger firms that are aggressively competing with foreign multinationals in terrains historically dominated by the latter. However, our understanding of this phenomenon is limited, as empirical research examining the nature of internationalization of African firms is scarce, and research directly investigating drivers, outcomes, and boundary conditions of the internationalization of African firms is lacking. The goal of this special issue, therefore, is to contribute to the scholarly understanding of the increasingly prevalent internationalization of African firms. This guest editorial provides a summary of the six articles in this special issue, and highlights three broad thematic issues: internationalization opportunities for African firms (accelerated private‐sector development and regional integration, and ability to overcome institutional voids); internationalization challenges (global competitiveness challenges, limited management and cross‐cultural capabilities, and overcoming the liability of Africanness); and internationalization risks (losing focus on home markets and over‐internationalization).     

The drop and collect survey among industrial populations: theory and empirical evidence

This paper examines the effectiveness of drop-and-collect-survey (DCS) method in improving response rates among organisations. It proposes a theory for its effectiveness and advances a number of propositions relating to its usage among organisations. Subsequent analyses, using empirical evidence from two separate DCS-based studies in Nigeria and Germany, suggest that the DCS results in significantly higher response rates among organisational respondents compared to mail questionnaires. These improved response rates are more likely to be achieved among smaller organisations and through direct, face to face, contact with the target key informant. Combining DCS with prenotification showed only a small, but positive effect. Support was also found for the hypothesised greater effectiveness of the DCS among high-technology firms relative to their low-technology counterparts. Based on the proposed theory and the empirical findings, a DCS decision and implementation framework is presented and directions for future research suggested.     

Toward a Contingency Framework of Export Entrepreneurship: Conceptualisations and Empirical Evidence

This paper reports the findings of a study, which employed a contingency, export-entrepreneurial approach to investigate the critical influences on export venture creation among a sample of Nigerian small firms. Responding to the repeated calls in the literature for multi-disciplinary research frameworks, the paper draws on perspectives from entrepreneurship, exporting, and contingency literatures to examine the antecedent and moderating influences on the export behavior of small firms. It explores, in particular, the effect of entrepreneurial orientation and external environmental moderators in the export venture creation process of small firms. The findings suggest that an entrepreneurial orientation is associated with better export venturing, and is the appropriate strategic posture for small firms operating in hostile environments. It would appear, also, that this orientation is associated with certain decision-maker characteristics (including international orientation and contacts and previous business experience) and firm-level competencies. By thus highlighting the entrepreneurial dimensions of export venturing, this paper makes the case for greater policy focus on strengthening the entrepreneurial foundations/capacities of small firms.