The role of market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation in export business development performance

Abstract

Export business development (EBD) is seen as an important component of strategic renewal, profitability, innovativeness and growth of firms. Previous research on business development considered its role in the success of Small Medium Enterprise’s (Davis and Sun, 2006) as well as the commercialisation of disruptive innovations (Giglierano, Vitale, and McClatchy, 2011) . However to date limited research has attempted to examine the behavioural influences and assess the outcomes of the joint effects of export market orientation (EMO) and export entrepreneurial orientation (EEO) on EBD performance. This study is aimed at providing an empirical investigation of these two strategic orientation factors to determine their impact on business development performance in South African export firms.A quantitative research methodology was employed. The assessment instrument developed by Boso, Cadogan and Story (2012) was used to measure EMO, EEO and export market dynamism (EMD). The research process comprised of two stages constituting a pre-test sample of six experts from the fresh produce export and steel fabrication sectors. The second phase was made up of 46 CEOs, executives, business developers, international sales managers and traders in the mining, fresh produce, electro technical, healthcare, automotive, oil&gas, steel, consulting services and other sectors.Statistical analysis for validity, reliability, construct correlation and multiple regression analysis showed acceptable results to conclude that the assessment instrument measures can be used amongst South African exporters of goods and services. A comparison of the differences of means between the constructs for background variables produced neither statistically significant differences nor practical significance for application in practice. The overall results of this study indicate that two of the three independent variables selected for testing, EMO and EEO were found to have statistically significant relationships with the dependent variables of EBD performance, and the presence of EMD did not have a statistically significant impact in moderating the joint effects of EMO and EEO.Recommendations are provided for key stakeholders to utilise when devising strategy, as well as marketing and recruitment interventions.