Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: International Marketing Review, Volume 30, Issue 6.
Welcome to the final issue of our 30th anniversary volume.
The four papers in this issue consider the role of strategic orientations (SOs) in explaining business growth, the role of external networks (ENs) and absorptive capacity (AC) in the export market location decision, entry mode decisions of Born Global (BG) firms and the link between market orientation (MO) and strategic performance.
Our first paper by Laukkanen et al. presents a study aims to examine how different SOs, namely learning orientation, entrepreneurial orientation, MO, and brand orientation, simultaneously affect business performance. Prior studies on SOs have mainly focused on single orientations at any given time. However, researchers increasingly argue that many firms are better off if they build their strategies on multiple SOs. Using an extensive data set of 1,120 effective responses from two European countries (Hungary, a post-socialist rapidly growing market, and Finland, a stable, highly developed and competitive economy) a multigroup moderation analysis was conducted. The results show that entrepreneurial orientation, MO and brand orientation have a positive effect on business growth in SMEs in both countries through brand and market performance. With regard to learning orientation, a positive yet somewhat weak effect on growth is found only in the Hungarian sample. The moderation analysis reveals that country moderates several of the hypothesized paths from SOs to business performance.
In our second paper, Kalanit and Aviv explore how the interaction between country and market factors and BGs’ SO affects BGs’choice of low- vs high-commitment entry modes.
Entry modes are a central aspect of international marketing, not least for young firms lacking organizational experience and capital. However, few studies on BG internationalization have addressed the antecedents to entry mode decisions in BG firms. Based on the two main groups of factors impacting entry mode decisions in general, namely environmental (external) conditions and firms’ strategic characteristics, data from 104 Israeli high-tech BG firms were gathered in field interviews with managers. Most BGs showed a strong prospector orientation manifested by exploration and exploitation of opportunities. This in turn moderated the impact of several host market factors on the choice of entry mode, encouraging BGs to choose high-commitment entry modes. Contrary to earlier research claiming that BGs minimize risk by choosing low-commitment entry modes, the findings here show that BGs’ choice of commitment level is affected by host market characteristics.
The third paper by Xinming and Yingqi draws on the resource-based view and network theory to investigate the role of ENs and AC in the export market location decision of emerging economy firms (EEFs) and the performance implication of this decision. The study is novel in conceptually addressing the role of ENs and AC in firms’ decision making and performance and tests three hypotheses:
1. ENs influence an EEF manager's propensity to enter culturally/psychically distant markets for exports. Distant markets are more likely to be chosen by managers of firms with abundant ENs.
2. AC moderates this network-market location relationship.
3. Superior performance results from the fit between managers’ propensity to enter a market and firms’ levels of ENs and AC.
Which are supported by a robust analysis of Chinese exporting firms.
Our final paper by Xiaodan et al. aims to provide new insights into the link between MO and strategic performance by disaggregating the MO construct. With a focus on responsiveness, a crucial element of MO, this research explores antecedents as well as outcomes in the strategic business units (SBUs) of MNCs. The decision-making structure of the firm was modelled as a moderator of the link between responsiveness and performance. Survey data from upper level managers employed by 126 MNC SBUs representing 23 industries were collected. The key findings indicate that: responsiveness mediates the link between intelligence generation and strategic performance;responsiveness also mediates the link between resource flexibility and strategic performance; and the link between responsiveness and strategic performance is moderated by the SBU's decision-making structure (i.e. centralization). The study contributes to the conceptual precision of the composite construct MO, and also illustrates an avenue to increase strategic performance. Managerially, it provides managers with prescriptive suggestions for leveraging the value of the elements of MO with respect to the firm's decision-making structure.
We hope you will enjoy reading these varied papers and agree that they make strong contributions indifferent ways and contexts to our knowledge and understanding of international marketing.
This is my final editorial as Editor of IMR. My thanks go again to all members of our Editorial Board and our other reviewers, both now and over the past 30 years, and to my Deputy and Co-Editors over the years – Professors Marylyn Carrigan, Rob Morgan and John Cadogan – as well as the Publishers assigned to IMR at Emerald – Rebecca Marsh, Richard Whitfield, and Martyn Lawrence, together with Mary Miskin, Jessica Davis, Mark Moreau,Laura Wilson, and Tansy Fall. I am confident Professor Cadogan, supported by a new team of Associate Editors in specific topic areas within international marketing, will take IMR from strength to strength into the future.
Jeryl Whitelock
