A contingency-based approach to understanding export performance

Christopher Robertson and Sylvie K. Chetty

International Business Review, 2000, vol. 9, issue 2, 211-235

Abstract: To date, most export performance studies have focused on providing business practitioners with set 'prescriptions' for export success. However, this approach has resulted in overwhelmingly inconsistent findings, so there is a need for alternative approaches. One alternative is through contingency theory, which posits that each firm's export performance is dependent on the context in which the firm operates. This study therefore uses contingency theory to establish if there is a relationship between export performance and the level of 'fit' between a firm's strategic orientation and its context. This study focused on exporting firms in the apparel industry in New Zealand. Firms were categorised as to whether they were entrepreneurial or conservative in their strategic orientation. The results showed that entrepreneurial firms could operate successfully in hostile or benign external environments, by using either organic or mechanistic export channel structures. But when entrepreneurial and conservative firms have a strategic orientation and channel structure that matches their external environment then there are no real performance advantages for entrepreneurial firms.

Keywords: Contingency; approach; Export; performance; Strategy; Channel; structure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (51)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593199000372
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:iburev:v:9:y:2000:i:2:p:211-235

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/133/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/133/bibliographic

Access Statistics for this article

International Business Review is currently edited by P. Ghauri

More articles in International Business Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().