Export Performance in SMEs: The Importance of External Knowledge Search Strategies and Absorptive Capacity

José Luis Ferreras-Méndez (), Anabel Fernández-Mesa and Joaquin Alegre
Additional contact information
José Luis Ferreras-Méndez: Universitat de València
Anabel Fernández-Mesa: Universitat de València

Management International Review, 2019, vol. 59, issue 3, No 4, 413-437

Abstract: Abstract External knowledge search strategies are considered essential for increasing export performance, a crucial goal for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in a globalised and turbulent environment. SMEs are known to have limited resources, which leads them to choose the export strategy as the best alternative for entering foreign markets. The present study analyses the link between industrial and non-industrial knowledge search strategies and export performance, taking into account absorptive capacity (AC) as a mediating variable. Results from a sample of 222 Spanish exporting SMEs reveal that orientation to collaborate with industrial partners contributes to firms’ AC and export performance. Moreover, AC is found to have a full mediating role between orientation to collaborate with industrial partners and export performance. The study makes a novel contribution by applying organisational learning theory to explain how both the strategies firms adopt to access external knowledge and their absorptive capacity affect their export performance.

Keywords: Export performance; Absorptive capacity; Industrial partner; Non-industrial partner; Knowledge search strategy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11575-019-00379-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:manint:v:59:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s11575-019-00379-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11575

DOI: 10.1007/s11575-019-00379-6

Access Statistics for this article

Management International Review is currently edited by Michael-Jörg Oesterle and Joachim Wolf

More articles in Management International Review from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().