اهمیت نسبی انواع اطلاعات در فرآیند انتخاب بازار خارجی

Guided by classic decision making theory, this paper presents the results of an empirical study designed to investigate export decision making. It specifically examines the relative importance of foreign market information used by international managers when choosing export markets. The authors identify three levels of export market selection information (primary environmental dimensions, subsidiary export dimensions and specific decision variables). Findings indicate practicing, experienced export managers consider numerous pieces of information to be important. In particular, information related to market potential (i.e. foreign buyers' ability to pay for imported products, and the nature of competition in export markets), and legal environment (i.e. non-tariff and tariff barriers) was rated most important when selecting export markets. Somewhat counter intuitive (given its recognized importance in the literature), information related to the cultural environment was rated as least important. Discussion of findings offer insights to explain these results and call for extended research.

Managers faced with the decision of which foreign markets to target have, from a normative perspective, been provided with numerous factors to consider (see Papadopoulos, 1988 for a review). However, academic literature investigating actual managerial decision making during the selection of foreign market targets is more rare. As stated by Andersen and Strandskov (1998), “Traditional international market selection [IMS] approaches have excluded the idiosyncrasies of decision makers and the complexity of contingent decision-making in favor of universal, normative guidelines” (p. 66). These authors argue that increased study of managerial decision making (along the lines of the body of literature related to consumer behavior decision making) would enrich our understanding of international target market selection: Scholars of managerial practice have instead pointed at indirect or experiential information collected in an ad hoc and informal manner as the most important influence on managerial decision-making connected with international market selection⋯Moreover, studies of the decision-making process rather than normative prescriptions on how to conduct decisions, given ideal (and unrealistic) conditions have long been called for⋯ (Andersen & Strandskov, 1998, p. 69) Classic decision making theory would assume that managers investigating a potential export market would first identify relevant evaluative criteria, or specific decision variables, appropriate for appraising alternative target market options. Second, managers would assign importance weights to the various criteria identified. Specific information about foreign market reality or performance related to relevant criteria would then be collected. Finally, one or more decision rules would be applied to the information collected in order to identify the best alternative target market (see Hodgson & Uyterhoeven, 1962, Stobaugh, 1969, Armstrong, 1970, Green & White, 1976 and Harrell & Kiefer, 1981). This paper investigates the first two steps of this overall decision making procedure by addressing three fundamental questions. First, what type of information do experts consider generally relevant for appraising export markets? Second, in terms of the decision making process, what types of specific information are considered important as evaluative criteria by experienced exporters in their efforts to identify ‘good’ international markets? And third, once potential criteria are identified, what relative weights do export managers attach to the various criteria? Specifically, this paper presents the findings of an empirical study designed to identify the perceived relative importance of potential evaluative criteria within the export decision making process. We begin with the development of an export environment information framework.

The conclusions stated here must be taken within the context of the limitations of the sample selected for study. Our sample represents only one geographical area of the US and findings could systematically vary by area of the country or countries from which exporters operate. Our findings could have been influenced by the specific organizations studied (lumber and wood products, and machinery except electrical made up the largest group surveyed in this work—see Table 2). Similarly our finding could vary by export industry under consideration (e.g. consumer goods, versus industrial goods versus services), or by perceived potential and experience within a specific export market. Thus the findings of this research should be tempered by academics and practitioners alike. While the implications of this work, for the broader audience of those involved with exporting research and the business of exporting, focus primarily on the nature of the potential cognitive structure utilized in examining export markets, any explicit structure employed by academics researching specific export groups or by firms analyzing specific markets should be tailored to their particular situation at hand. The results presented here are offered only as a marker from which others could begin their inquiries. Our findings are also limited to the specific decision variables (and corresponding subsidiary export dimensions and primary environmental dimensions) used in the study. These variables are frequently cited in the literature as those appropriate for export target selection and our interviewees and survey respondents generally confirmed their importance. Nonetheless, there may be other variables of concern to practicing managers. With these limitations in mind, this study found broad support for the conclusion that practicing export managers, who are faced with an export market selection decision, consider a wide range of information identified in the normative literature as important. However, the specific importance of information concerning six different primary environmental dimensions, 17 subsidiary export dimensions and 60 specific decision variables varied considerably. Overall, the primary environmental dimension of market potential was clearly indicated by export managers as the most important. Of the specific sub-components of market potential, the nature of competition, and the general demand level in the market, seem to be particularly important. The other primary environmental dimensions examined in this study were considered much less important. Of these other dimensions, the legal environment (including both tariff and non-tariff regulations) was rated next in importance, followed by the political, infrastructure, economic, and cultural environments. If export managers evaluate foreign markets using a classic, compensatory decision rule, a market with good performance on the more important dimensions of market potential, legal, and political environments may be considered as a valid target; even if that market performs at relatively low levels in terms of infrastructure, economic, or cultural situations. For managers evaluating foreign markets more along non-compensatory decision making lines, an important dimension such as market potential may serve as a key, initial filter. That is, before going on to consider legal, political, infrastructure, economic, and cultural environments in the export market, managers may first require potential demand levels and the competitive environment (the two most important components of market potential) to be favorable. Future research is recommended to extend the findings of this study to other types of exporters (those from different regions of the US and the world), in different types of industries, and with varying degrees of experience and risk taking tendencies. Research examining export performance and its relationship to the valuation of different types of information, and use of alternative decision making models, is also recommended. By extending our knowledge of exporting criteria and decision making, the risks associated with new and different foreign markets could be decreased, and exporting success rates increased.