دانش شبکه ای و ارزش کسب و کار ـ رابطه در بازار خارجی

Based on the key assumptions that firms are opportunity seeking and that they gain critical knowledge operating in a network of relationships, this paper focuses on early expansion in foreign market networks. In particular, the paper examines the relation between experience and business-relationship value in a foreign market. While experience and experiential knowledge are central concepts in international business, little has been written about their effects on the value of business relationships. The paper formulates a set of interrelated hypotheses on the effects of international experience, experiential network knowledge and importance of customer and competitor knowledge on the value of business relationships in a foreign market. They are combined in a structural model, which is tested on a sample through LISREL. The main conclusion drawn from the study is that experiential network knowledge and knowledge about the importance of customers and competitors in the network influence the value of business relationships in a foreign market in different ways.

In several studies it has been observed that single business relationships can play a critical role in the early international expansion of SME firms (Chetty and Blankenburg Holm, 2000, Child et al., 2002, Ellis, 2000, Hilmersson and Jansson, 2011, Johanson and Vahlne, 2003 and Sharma and Blomstermo, 2003). It has also been shown that network constructs can be used fruitfully for understanding and explaining SME internationalisation (Coviello and Munro, 1995, Hadley and Wilson, 2003 and Oviatt and McDougall, 2005). Against this background, a purpose of this paper is to study how networks influence business relationships in foreign markets. However, the network literature on internationalisation is heterogeneous. Most of it is about how firms develop resources and gain knowledge about foreign markets (Gilmore et al., 2006, Hadley and Wilson, 2003 and Zhou et al., 2007). Moreover, some studies focus on personal relations between people and how these relations influence internationalisation (Björkman and Kock, 1995 and Ellis, 2000), whereas others focus on firm relations and their effects. Given the important role of international experience in the internationalisation literature, we think that there is reason to examine the influence of international experience and knowledge in a network setting (Johanson and Vahlne, 2009). Consequently, the purpose of our study is, more precisely, to investigate some effects of international experience, knowledge and networks on the value of business relationships in foreign markets. The empirical analysis of the paper demonstrates that international experience and three different types of network knowledge influence the value of business relationships in foreign markets. The three types of network knowledge are experiential network knowledge, knowledge about customers and knowledge about competitors. The value of a business relationship in the foreign market has strong implications for network expansion in that market. The paper is organised as follows. Section 2, is a comprehensive review of the literature on networks and internationalisation. The review identifies some gaps in this research. Based on the literature review we specify four research questions. In Section 3, we outline a model, which is the theoretical base for six interrelated hypotheses that are developed in section 4. The resulting structural model is presented in Section 5, and Section 6 describes the data and the LISREL method we used in the analysis. Finally, in Section 7 we discuss the findings of the study and their implications for future research.

7.1. Findings and implications for future research We now return to the four introductory research questions. We start by discussing our findings and continue by indicating important research implications. First we consider the fourth question. Although international experience has a long tradition as a central concept in explanations of various aspects of international business, it has usually been indicated by time and/or variation of international operations. In this study, we separate time and variation from knowledge and instead we measure experiential network knowledge more directly as a set of capabilities that the managers judge that the firm has irrespective of time and variation. The strong causal relation between the two constructs supports the traditional way of measuring international experience but also shows that the experience and experiential network knowledge are most definitely separate. The study demonstrates that experiential network knowledge has a direct effect on business relationship value in the early part of a firm's expansion in a foreign market network, while international experience has no such direct effect. A related finding is that international experience has a direct impact on the perceived importance of knowledge about customers. We find no such effect on perceived importance of knowledge about competitors. This is an aspect of international experience that has not been considered in earlier studies. This study indicates no such effects from experiential network knowledge. We suggest further research on the experiential network knowledge construct. Can we find any more antecedents of the construct and does it have any more interesting consequences? We now turn to the third research question. The variable expected new customers has a strong loading in the business relationship value construct. This supports the findings in earlier studies that entry nodes or bridgeheads are important elements in expansion in foreign market networks. This study contributes by providing some mechanisms that are likely to lead to development of business relationship value and indirectly to network extension. Both experiential network knowledge and perceived importance of customer knowledge and competitor knowledge influence business relationship value and are, in turn, likely to influence network extension. Given our findings, we believe that there is reason to do research in order to develop the business relationship value construct. There seems to be a potential in differentiating the construct and investigating how various network antecedents influence the various new constructs and finding out whether and how they have different network consequences. Concerning the second research question, our study demonstrates that international experience influences importance of knowledge about customers for relationship development. This is not surprising. It is surprising, however, that we found no such effect on importance of competitor knowledge for relationship development. The analysis demonstrated, however, that importance of customer knowledge increased importance of competitor knowledge. This can be interpreted as an indication that importance of knowledge about competitors comes only indirectly via a customer. Another surprising finding is that there was a negative effect of importance of competitor knowledge on relationship development. A cautious interpretation of this is that, as a business relationship develops, the managers find that the relationship is so well developed that importance of knowledge about competitors is less relevant. Once again we have implications for important network research. Obviously, knowledge about network actors and probably about relationships is important for understanding network development. Finally, we consider the first research question. The findings of the study imply a development over time that is a requirement for a dynamic approach to network development. We have two important chains of causality that imply network development. First we have the chain from international experience via experiential network knowledge to relationship value development in a foreign market. Second we have causal chains from international experience via customer and competitor knowledge to relationship development in the foreign network. One important step for such a dynamic network development would be to build a separate construct capturing the expected new customer relationships in the foreign market network. Developing such a construct would make it possible to build a network model of the dynamics of foreign market entry. Here we have the experiential knowledge side of a dynamic network model of foreign market entry and we need a corresponding commitment side. We suggest further research in this direction. However, the analysis of our model, in spite of its validity, demonstrates that the relations are by no means deterministic. All relations in the resulting structural model are significant, but they leave room for strategy development. 7.2. Some limitations In international business research, it is generally assumed that culture and institutions have strong impacts on business in foreign markets. Although there are several such possible effects on network knowledge, this study does not consider them. The culture and institution in the host country can influence network knowledge. A comparison between host countries would be a simple way to investigate such factors. It is also possible, as variables such as psychic distance, cultural distance and institutional distance suggest, that the distance between the home country and the foreign market country affects network knowledge. This would be expected, based on many findings regarding the effects of such distances. The centrality of ongoing business relationships in this study leads to other interesting questions for future research. Is it only in connection to specific business relationships that factors such as culture and institutions become important for firms in terms of growing in foreign market networks? Thus, are the effects of such factors mainly mediated by the business relationship, or do these factors directly affect growth in the foreign market? Evidently, that is an important question from a managerial point of view. If the effect is mediated, this should be handled within the relationship, otherwise it can only be accepted as given.