Pre-Internationalization and Performance Conditions of First-Time Exporting SMEs

Pierre-Xavier Meschi (), Antonin Ricard () and Ernesto Tapia Moore
Additional contact information
Pierre-Xavier Meschi: CERGAM - Centre d'Études et de Recherche en Gestion d'Aix-Marseille - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - UTLN - Université de Toulon
Antonin Ricard: CERGAM - Centre d'Études et de Recherche en Gestion d'Aix-Marseille - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - UTLN - Université de Toulon, AMU IAE - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Aix-en-Provence - AMU - Aix Marseille Université
Ernesto Tapia Moore: KEDGE Business School [Marseille]

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This article aims to determine whether pre-internationalization conditions improve the performance of first-time exporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Two pre-internationalization conditions are discussed here: firm performance and age at internationalization. Building on the aspiration-level performance model of March and Shapira (1992) with sequential internationalization and international new-ventures approaches, this article develops two research hypotheses proposing an effective alignment with pre-internationalization performance and age at internationalization. These research hypotheses are examined using a panel database of 522 French SMEs that began export operations for the first time in 2014. The statistical results partially support our first hypothesis by showing that early-internationalizing SMEs with a lower performance relative to their peers significantly increase their post-internationalization performance. Contrary to what we predicted in our second hypothesis, we observe that late-internationalizing SMEs, which deliver a much higher performance than their historical aspirations, significantly reduce their post-internationalization performance.

Keywords: Aspiration-level performance model; Early internationalization; First-time exporting SME; Internationalization process; Late internationalization; Social and historical aspirations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-03-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-int and nep-sbm
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://amu.hal.science/hal-03216166v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in M@n@gement, 2021, pp.31-43. ⟨10.37725/mgmt.v24i1.4507⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://amu.hal.science/hal-03216166v1/document (application/pdf)

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:hal:journl:hal-03216166

DOI: 10.37725/mgmt.v24i1.4507

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().