| Abstract: | Abstract The purpose of our work is to investigate the export strategy of international business by explicitly comparing exporting firms with non-exporting ones. This task has been undertaken by having recourse to a very large sample with more than 55,000 registered Spanish enterprises from all commercial sectors. Using this sample, we try to demonstrate that exporters and non-exporters belong to different strategic groups, with different profit levels. The existence of three kinds of barriers (managerial, organisational and external) constrains migration of non-exporting enterprises to the exporting group. However, the conclusions herein presented point at some ways of avoiding these barriers. |
