Leveraging Entrepreneurial Orientation to Enhance SME Export Performance

摘要

Export strategy has become increasingly important for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in recent years. To realize the full potential of export strategy, SMEs must be able to address challenges in export markets successfully. A firm must have adequate capabilities to meet unique challenges in such efforts. However, SMEs are limited by their access to resources and capabilities. While prior studies have looked at the importance of organizational learning in export strategy, they have overlooked the firm capabilities that facilitate the use of the learning. As firms that partake in export activity are entrepreneurial in nature, these firms would benefit by proactively seeking new markets, engaging in innovative action to meet local market needs, and be able and willing to take risks by venturing into previously unknown markets. The authors of this paper propose that SMEs make use of capabilities such as entrepreneurial orientation in an attempt to reduce impediments to exporting, which in turn could lead to enhanced export performance.