عملکرد صادرات و بازارگرایی: ایجاد یک ارتباط تجربی

This study examines the export performance consequences of a market orientation and the potential moderating impact of the competitive, technological, and market environment. Market orientation was positively related to three dimensions of export performance: change in export sales, export profits, and change in export profits. The impact of market orientation on export profits and change in export profits was stronger in a technologically turbulent environment. Overall, this study synthesizes two important streams of research, assesses the moderating impact of the environment, and empirically establishes a relation between market orientation and export performance.

Increased trade, the globalization of products and services, as well as the internationalization of specific firms have steadily accentuated the importance of export performance. Previous research has identified several correlates to successful exporting, including commitment to exporting (e.g., Evangelista, 1994), foreign orientation (Dichtl et al., 1990), managerial attitudes toward risk (Cavusgil, 1984), effective planning, and capabilities in research and marketing (Evangelista, 1994). As a whole, past research has highlighted the importance of managerial attitudes and organizational competencies on export performance, but has not supplied a unified theoretical framework for explaining the presence or absence of these competencies. Recent marketing management research (e.g., Kohli and Jaworski, 1990, Kohli et al., 1993, Narver and Slater, 1990, Jaworski and Kohli, 1993 and Deshpande and Farley, 1998) has presented a comparatively unified theory for explaining business performance: market orientation. Market orientation provides a means of assessing the overall customer and marketing focus of an organization. Firms that are market-oriented should better recognize and respond to global changes and opportunities in their competitive environment. Thus, market orientation provides a theoretical framework for explaining export performance. This study examines the effect of overall market orientation and its three components (intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination, and responsiveness) on four dimensions of export performance (sales, change in sales, profits, change in profits). Assessing the consequences of each component of market orientation on performance should facilitate managerial action by isolating the differential impact of each. Export performance research has examined correlates to specific aspects of performance and has employed a limited set of performance measures, particularly export intensity or the percentage of sales accounted for by exports (e.g., Axinn, 1988; see Aaby and Slater, 1989 for a review). Research in market orientation has generally focused on a limited number of domestic performance measures (e.g., Narver and Slater, 1990 and Jaworski and Kohli, 1993). More recent research has attempted to link a study-specific measure of market orientation to a global measure of performance (Thirkell and Dau, 1998) and presented an initial conceptualization of the components (Diamantopoulos and Cadogan, 1996) and antecedents (Cadogan and Paul, in press) of export market-orientated behavior. None of these researches, however, has employed Jaworski and Kohli's (1993) conceptual and operational framework for market orientation nor examined the specific effects of market orientation and its components on multiple dimensions of export performance. This study employs a four-dimensional framework for export performance Madsen, 1987 and Shoham, 1998; examines the moderating effect of the competitive, the market, and the technological environment; and assesses the impact of an overall market orientation and its components on export performance. Thus, this study contributes to the literature in four ways: first, by focusing on the link between overall market orientation and export performance; second, by examining the moderating impact of some crucial environmental variables; third, by assessing the consequences of the individual components of market orientation; fourth, by applying a more complete conceptual and operational definition of export performance and market orientation than utilized in past research.

As a whole, our results establish a relation between market orientation and export performance. Previous export performance research has established the importance of managerial attitudes and organizational competencies Aaby and Slater, 1989 and Evangelista, 1994, but has not provided an underlying rationale for explaining these competencies. This study builds upon this research by establishing the role of market orientation as an overall organizational competency that facilitates successful exporting. Change in export sales, export profits, and change in export profits were all significantly related to overall market orientation. Previous research in marketing management has related market orientation to subjective overall evaluations of a firm's performance (Jaworski and Kohli, 1993). However, the only objective measure employed by Jaworski and Kohli (1993) — market share — was not significantly related to market orientation. Subsequent research has linked a study-specific measure of market orientation to export performance (Thirkell and Dau, 1998), presented a conceptualization of export market-oriented behavior (Diamantopoulos and Cadogan, 1996), and examined the antecedents of these behaviors, but has not examined the relationship between a widely used and empirically validated measure of market orientation (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990) and multiple dimensions of export performance. Thus, this study builds upon previous research by incorporating a more complete battery of both subjective and objective measures of export performance. Previous research has established a link between export market-oriented behavior and a single combined global measure of export performance (Cadogan et al., 1998). Our study builds on this finding by assessing the impact of a general market orientation and assessing multiple dimensions of performance. Our finding that export sales (composed of sales as a percentage of total sales, the dollar value of export sales for the last year, and market share in the most important export product and market combination) was not significantly related to market orientation is consistent with previous research. Jaworski and Kohli (1993) found little relation between overall market orientation and market share. This study extends this finding to exporting and includes market share in a more complete measure of sales. Aggregate sales-based measures may be the least sensitive when assessing the influence of managerial attitudes, policies, and orientations. Overall export sales and intensity may be the result of years of past performance and success. Thus, our findings highlight the importance of utilizing a multidimensional approach to export performance. Change in export sales was related to overall market orientation. We asked managers to assess their change in export sales over a 5-year period as well as their satisfaction with this change and found a positive significant relation between change in export sales and market orientation. This finding is consistent with previous longitudinal research, which has found a significant relation between market orientation and sales growth over a 4-year period (Narver et al., 1993) but not a 1-year period (Pelham and Wilson, 1996). Thus, gains in sales and market share may be produced gradually over time. Export profit and change in export profit were also significantly related to overall market orientation. These findings are consistent with previous research in the US, where market orientation was related to profitability (Pelham and Wilson, 1996) and ROA (Slater and Narver, 1994). Thus, our findings extend domestic market orientation research by establishing an empirical link between three dimensions of export performance (change in sales, profit, and change in profit) and a general market orientation. Our study also examined the influence of three environmental variables that potentially moderate the market orientation–business performance relationship: market turbulence, competitive intensity, and technological turbulence. Previous findings for the moderating impact of the environment have been mixed. Domestic studies within the US have generally found little evidence for the moderating role of the environment (Jaworski and Kohli, 1993 and Slater and Narver, 1994), while the effect has been more pronounced (statistically significant) outside of the US Diamantopoulos and Hart, 1993 and Greenley, 1995. This study finds a significant effect for the technological environment. Firms in highly turbulent technological environments benefit from a market orientation to a greater extent than firms in less change-oriented, less turbulent technological environments. No effect was found for competitive intensity or market turbulence, however. These findings parallel and supplement the findings of Cadogan and Paul (in press), who examined the antecedents of export market-oriented behavior and found that only technological change was significantly and directly related to export market-oriented behaviors. Thus, technological change appears to act as an antecedent of market-oriented export behaviors and to modify the strength of the relationship between a general market orientation and export profitability. The lack of support for the impact of the other environmental variables (competitive intensity and market turbulence) either as an antecedent or as a moderator is consistent across studies. Turbulence in the competitor and customer environment may increase the perceived need for market information but decrease a firm's ability to be export market-oriented (Cadogan and Paul, in press). Additional research is needed to further assess the performance consequences of a market orientation across a variety of export environments. Finally, previous research has not examined the consequences of the individual components of market orientation Kohli and Jaworski, 1990 and Jaworski and Kohli, 1993. Intelligence generation and responsiveness were related to three of the four dimensions of export performance (change in sales, profits, and change in profits). Acquiring and responding to market information are particularly important in an export marketing context, where changes in the economic, political, and consumer environment are likely. Thus, exporting generally increases the complexity and dynamism of the external environment, which increases the need for market intelligence and responsiveness. Intelligence dissemination was not related to any of the four dimensions of export performance. This finding may suggest that the performance consequences of market orientation are primarily an intradepartmental process. No study, to the author's knowledge, has previously examined the consequences of intelligence dissemination. Alternatively, the reduced role of intelligence dissemination could reflect the relatively small size of the firms sampled in this study relative to the large multinationals sampled in previous work Kohli and Jaworski, 1990 and Jaworski and Kohli, 1993. Thus, intelligence dissemination may have a reduced impact in small-to medium-sized firms. Small- to medium-sized exporters, such as those found in Israel, are likely to play an increasingly important role in international trade. Although some nations, such as Israel, Denmark, and Singapore, have traditionally depended on exports for growth, the increased interconnection and globalization of other nations should increase the number of small- to medium-sized exporters, such as those found in Israel. Thus, Israel provides an interesting context for studying the export performance consequences of a market orientation. It is a small, economically developing nation, which is heavily dependent on exports as a source of growth. Overall, this study has established the importance of market orientation and two of its components — intelligence generation and responsiveness — on export performance. Additional research is needed to further assess the influence of intelligence dissemination and the performance consequences of the export environment.