Explaining the Mediating Role of Cultural, Entrepreneurship and Marketing Capabilities in the Effect of Strategic Orientations on Export Performance in Cellulose Industry in Iran

Author Name(s): *Kamran Niknamian, Gholamreza Tavakoli
Author Email: k.niknamian@pekian.com

Abstract

Today, experts as one of the most important ways of internationalization for businesses has found a special position in economy of every country and companies constantly are seeking to improve their export performance and the level of their export level. To this end, multiple factors can affect export performance improvement, among which we can refer to strategic orientations of a company in the field of export and it can lead to export performance growth through affecting various cultural, marketing and entrepreneurship factors. Hence, the main aim of this study is to explain the mediating role of cultural, entrepreneurship and marketing capabilities in the effect strategic orientations on export performance in cellulose industry in Iran. Statistical population of the present study is consisted of all the manages and top experts of companies active in cellulose industry that are a total of 324 persons and statistical sample volume is considered equal to 176 persons by using simple random sampling method and research questionnaire which is consisted of 30 items was distributed among the individual in research sample and collected back. Research results indicated that strategic orientations have a positive and significant effect on export performance. It was also indicated that each of the cultural, marketing and entrepreneurship factors has a positive and significant effect on export performance and that their mediating role in the effect of strategic orientations on export performance was confirmed.

Keywords

Export performance, strategic orientation, cultural factors, marketing factors, entrepreneurship.

Introduction

Export is considered as one of the most common ways in front of companies, especially small and medium sized companies for entering international markets. One of the most important reasons for this is that export comparing to other internationalization methods, requires less resources. Hence, export sales increasing has attracted the attention of companies as a proper approach toward growth. In this section, we will discuss the measures based on which export performance of companies is measured and what are the factors which affect export performance in companies.

Today, business environment complexity, increasing competition between manufactures, limited resources available to companies and so many other factors have caused manufacturing organizations to shift toward making use of optimal processes and decisions, in order to guarantee the possibility of progressive survival of their organizations (Mehrgan et al., 2011: 17). At the same time, access to export information, marketing capabilities and strategic orientation can be effective as well and in turn can affect export market growth as well.

On one hand, the study of export performance goes back to 1960s. Toki (1064) for the first time identified the factors associated with success in export. From that time to this day, so many studies have examined the interactions between export performances. The present study seeks to study the relationship between export commitment and export performance with the mediating role of the variables of language, cultural, entrepreneurship capabilities and marketing techniques (Rahnemood et al., 2011).  Entrepreneurship and marketing capabilities are among very important topics that have received serious attention from so many developed and developing countries. Entrepreneurship is defined as a driver for fining new mix of production factors and a factor for accelerating economic growth by Schumpeter.

Marketing strategies is one of the sources used in export and refers to official systematic application of scientific methods for obtaining export objectives information and export marketing information. So many studies have shown that a company is dependent on marketing strategy. According to Say and Shey (2004), a marketing information system improves company’s performance through the positive effect of its market potentials .Export marketing information includes all the aspects of collecting information (Koksal, 2008).

Hence, the present study seeks to explain the mediating role of cultural, entrepreneurship and marketing capabilities in the effect of strategic orientation on export performance in cellulose industry of Ira

Conclusion 

Research results indicated that strategic orientation explains 35.4% of the changes in export performance and has a positive and significant effect on it. According to this finding, objectivity and the use of certain export strategies can be effective on export performance and its improvement. These findings are consistent with the findings of ?. According to results of research hypotheses 2, 3 and 4, strategic orientation explain 79.6% of the changes in cultural capabilities, 63.4% of the changes in entrepreneurship capabilities and 65.8% of the changes in marketing capabilities and all have a positive and significant effect. According to these findings, it appears that with adopting objective strategies for presence in international market and exports, cultural, entrepreneurship and marketing capabilities become more objective and developed and to provide the necessary contexts for a more prominent presence n the field of exports. Findings of this section is consistent with the findings of ?. According to the results of research hypotheses 5, 6 and 7, cultural capabilities, entrepreneurship capabilities and marketing capabilities explain 15.3%, 25.7% and 29.9% of the changes in export performance, respectively. According to these findings, it can be said that with adopting appropriate strategies for exports, all capabilities of a company change and develop in proportion with it. To this end, the necessary cultural capabilities in exports, entrepreneurship and innovation capabilities as a fundamental principle for a successful presence in competitive markets and also significant marketing capabilities as an important principle in market and sales success of a company in export markets can be effective on improvement of export performance of companies with adopting an important and integrated approach. These findings are consistent with the findings of ?.According to the results of research hypotheses 8, 9 and 10, it was revealed that strategic orientation explains 12.1%, 16.2% and 19.6% of the changes in export performance through the mediating variables of cultural capabilities, entrepreneurship capabilities and marketing capabilities, respectively. Therefore, the mediating role of all the variables of cultural, entrepreneurship and marketing capabilities in the relationship between strategic orientation and export performance is confirmed. Among these variables, the mediating role of marketing capabilities is more prominent which indicates to the importance of paying attention to marketing activities for presence in export markets. Next, it is necessary to pay attention to entrepreneurship capabilities as a fundamental component for creating innovation in products, services and processes related to presence in export market. And finally, cultural capabilities are also of great importance due to the existing differences in domestic and export markets in the culture of end customers.

Based on these findings the following recommendations are provided:

  • Export marketing strategies should be aligned with major organizational strategies and should fully cover all various organizational capabilities.
  • Strategic orientations in export should be based on existing marketing, entrepreneurship and cultural capabilities and the necessary infrastructures should be provided for gaining success.
  • For improving export performance, it is necessary for strategic orientations to be based on making use of domestic strengths and existing opportunities in export markets.

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