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Paper info: Network exploration and exploitation capability, foreign market knowledge, and international market performance: the role of strategic orientations

Title


Network exploration and exploitation capability, foreign market knowledge, and international market performance: the role of strategic orientations

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Place of Publication


The paper was published at the 35th IMP-conference in Paris, France in 2019.

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Abstract


The empirical study aims to analyze the relationship between an internationalizing firm’s network exploration and network exploitation capability and foreign market knowledge, with EO as a moderator. It also investigates the association between foreign market knowledge and firms’ market performance, with moderation of proactive export MO and responsive export MO. Primary data was collected by a structured questionnaire from 198 exporting firms of Bangladesh, a developing economy in South Asia. The authors incorporated hierarchical regression for the analysis. According to the results, exporting firms’ network capability, network exploitation and exploration, has significant positive impacts on foreign market knowledge. Second, contrary to the hypotheses for positive effects of EO, international EO has no effect and only a marginal influence, respectively, on network exploitation-market knowledge and network exploration-market knowledge association. Third, there is a significant positive relationship between foreign market knowledge and firms’ market performance. Finally, while both proactive and responsive export MO play a significant moderating role in this relationship, the latter’s impact, nonetheless, is negative contrary to authors’ proposition. The study contributes to the network perspective to internationalization by differentiating network capabilities with the lens of exploration and exploitation. Second, it questions the necessity of international EO by demonstrating its insignificance when combined with exporting firms’ network capability. Finally, the study investigated the role of proactive export MO, in addition to responsive MO, on firms’ international performance. As a result, the study offers valuable academic insights to International Entrepreneurship, export performance, and strategic orientation literature, along with managerial and policy implications.