Organizational capabilities and SME exports: the moderating role of external funding intentions and managerial capacity

Ko Wai Wai (), Catherine Liston-Heyes (), Weixi Liu, Gordon Liu () and Marc Cowling
Additional contact information
Ko Wai Wai: Brunel University London
Catherine Liston-Heyes: University of Ottawa
Gordon Liu: The Open University

Small Business Economics, 2022, vol. 58, issue 1, No 16, 247-261

Abstract: Abstract Entry to export markets can stimulate business growth, yet remarkably few small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) pursue export strategies. Using data gathered from the UK Small Business Surveys and a theoretical framework that combines principles from the resource-based view of the firm with notions of “investment readiness” and “managerial capacity,” we examine the empirical relationships between new product development (NPD) and new market entry (NME) capabilities on UK SMEs export decisions. Among other things, we find that there are contexts in which SMEs should develop these capabilities concurrently and others in which they should develop them independently to minimize added managerial complexity. Our results also indicate that in the absence of strong managerial capacity, SMEs should prioritize NME over NPD capabilities. Our findings produce several interesting theoretical and practical implications for SME exports.

Keywords: Exports; New product development; New market entry; External funding intentions; Managerial capacity; Small- and medium-sized enterprises (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G20 L26 M16 M31 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11187-020-00408-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:kap:sbusec:v:58:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s11187-020-00408-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... 29/journal/11187/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11187-020-00408-x

Access Statistics for this article

Small Business Economics is currently edited by Zoltan J. Acs and David B. Audretsch

More articles in Small Business Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().