Export Market Orientation & International Performance in SMEs PDF

Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship ISSN: 0827-6331 (Print) 2169-2610 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/rsbe20 Export market orientation and international performance in the context of SMEs Federica Pascucci, Sara Bartoloni & Gian Luca Gregori To cite this ar...

Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship ISSN: 0827-6331 (Print) 2169-2610 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/rsbe20 Export market orientation and international performance in the context of SMEs Federica Pascucci, Sara Bartoloni & Gian Luca Gregori To cite this article: Federica Pascucci, Sara Bartoloni & Gian Luca Gregori (2016) Export market orientation and international performance in the context of SMEs, Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, 28:5, 361-375, DOI: 10.1080/08276331.2016.1167528 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/08276331.2016.1167528 Published online: 28 Apr 2016. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 3516 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 9 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rsbe20 Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, 2016 Vol. 28, No. 5, 361 375, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08276331.2016.1167528 Export market orientation and international performance in the context of SMEs Federica Pascucci , Sara Bartoloni* and Gian Luca Gregori Department of Management, Universit
a Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy (Received 16 October 2015; accepted 14 March 2016) The purpose of this study is to provide new insights into the relationship between ‘export market orientation’ (EMO) and ‘export performance’ by using a disaggregated approach. The authors want to provide empirical evidence of some antecedents of EMO and its contribution to export performance in the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The empirical research consists of a survey, conducted by using cross-sectional data of a sample of 300 Italian small and medium-sized coffee roasting firms. The results show how roasting firms seem to be more inclined to respond to market changes than to generate and share market information, since the value of export intelligence responsiveness is higher than export intelligence dissemination and export intelligence generation. Regarding the antecedents, the number of foreign markets and the presence of an export department are significantly and positively related to the two components of EMO, while the number of years has no impact. Finally, the regression analysis also demonstrates how the responsiveness influences export performance directly, while market intelligence generation and dissemination are fundamental drivers of responsiveness. The study extends previous empirical research works on EMO in the Italian context and demonstrates its applicability also in the case of SMEs. Keywords: export market orientation; SME; export performance Cette etude se donnait pour objectif d’apporter un nouvel eclairage sur les rapports entre « l’orientation vers le marche d’exportation » et « la performance
a l’exportation » en utilisant une approche segmentee. Les auteurs veulent apporter des preuves empiriques de certains antecedents d’OME et de leur contribution
a la performance des exportations dans l’environnement des PME. Cette recherche empirique a consiste en une enqu^ete, conduite
a partir des donnees transversales d’un echantillon de 300 petites et moyennes entreprises de torrefaction du cafe en Italie. Les resultats montrent
a quel point ces entreprises semblent plus enclines
a repondre aux changements du marche qu’
a generer et partager de « l’intelligence » de marche, puisque la valeur de la reactivite
a l’information sur les exportations est superieure
a celle de la dissemination et de la generation de cette m^eme information. Concernant les antecedents, le nombre de marches et la presence d’un service des exportations sont fortement et positivement lies aux deux composantes de l’OME, alors que le nombre d’annees n’a aucun impact. Enfin, l’analyse de regression demontre elle aussi comment la reactivite influence directement la performance
a l’exportation, alors que la generation et la dissemination d’informations sont des moteurs fondamentaux de la reactivite. L’etude etend des travaux de recherche empiriques anterieurs au contexte italien et demontre egalement son applicabilite
a l’environnement des PME. Mots-cles: orientation vers le marche d’exportation; PME; performance
a l’exportation *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] Ó 2016 Journal of the Canadian Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship/Conseil de la PME et de l’entrepreneuriat 362 F. Pascucci et al. Introduction Exporting has become an increasingly important driver for the survival and growth of manufacturing firms in most economies, particularly in Italy during the recent economic crisis. A firm’s success depends on its exporting capability, and so it is fundamental to understand how to enhance this capability. In response to this question, international mar- keting literature indicates that one path to export success is to be market oriented (Rose and Shoham 2002). The concept of market orientation (MO) stems from the theoretical development of the marketing concept and generally refers to a firm’s ability to generate market intelligence pertaining to customer needs and to competitors, to share this intelli- gence within the firm, and to use it to respond to market changes. MO is a critical market- ing capability that potentially provides firms with positional advantage and thus enhances export performance. We have two different conceptualizations of MO. The first one describes MO as part of organizational culture, which leads to the creation and the deliv- ery of superior value for customers (Narver and Slater 1990). On the other hand, the sec- ond conceptualization conceives MO as specific behaviors of the organization linked to the generation, dissemination, and use of the information inside the organization (Kohli and Jaworski 1990). Taking into account the complexity and uncertainty of foreign markets, some researchers have called for the conceptualization of a specific export market orientation (EMO). In fact, the shift from a domestic setting to an export setting involves more capa- bilities and problems associated with the availability, accessibility, and quality of export information. Those are additional obstacles that occurred in developing an EMO. Cado- gan and Diamantopoulos (1995) were the first to introduce this construct, by integrating the two dominant views of MO. Specifically, EMO is conceptualized as made by three different behavioral components: export intelligence generation (EIG), export intelli- gence dissemination (EID), and export intelligence responsiveness (EIR). However, a review of the literature suggests that a relatively small number of empiri- cal studies have expanded market orientation research to the international business envi- ronment (Chi and Su 2013) and to small and medium-sized firms (SMEs), in particular (Singh and Mahmood 2013). Our study contributes to filling this gap in two major ways. First, it attempts to exam- ine the applicability of the EMO scale within Italy (Cadogan, Diamantopoulos, and Mortanges 1999); the issue of EMO among Italian companies has not been addressed in any study, to date. Second, it aims to provide empirical evidence of some antecedents of EMO and its contribution to export performance in the context of SMEs. In the next section, we present a review of the relevant literature as well as the theoret- ical foundations of our conceptual model and research hypotheses. Then, the research methodology and the findings of the empirical analysis are presented. Finally, the impli- cations, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed. Literature review The concept of market orientation A resource-based view of the firm represents the theoretical framework of our work (Barney 1991); this theory has been widely used to explain the firm’s internationalization and exporting in particular. We consider MO to be a marketing capability that helps firms achieve a competitive advantage and, consequently, superior business performance, because it is firm-specific, rare, and inimitable.  Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship 363 In literature, academics and practitioners have been studying the construct and the concept of MO for decades (Shapiro 1988; Kohli and Jaworski 1990; Narver and Slater 1990) by assessing that businesses with highest degrees of MO are associated with highest profitability (Narver and Slater 1990). Despite there is a wide variety of definitions, in lit- erature prevail the two following main conceptualizations of ‘market orientation’: (1) MO as part of organizational culture, permanently orientating the company toward the creation and delivery of superior value for its customers (Narver and Slater 1990); in this model (MKTOR) MO consists of three behavioral compo- nents that are - customer orientation; - competitor orientation; - interfunctional coordination. The first two components include all the activities involved in acquiring information about buyers and competitors in the target market and disseminating it through the busi- ness; the interfunctional coordination refers to the business’s coordination efforts in the use of these information. In this conceptualization, MO is basically the business culture that most effectively and efficiently creates superior value for customers. (2) MO as specific behaviors of the organization linked to the generation, dissemina- tion, and use of information (Kohli and Jaworski 1990). This model (MARKOR) specifically defines MO as the ‘organization-wide generation of marketing intelli- gence pertaining to current and future customer’s needs, dissemination of the intelligence across departments, and organization-wide responsiveness to it’ (Kohli and Jaworski 1990, 6). Responsiveness consists of two activities: - response design, that is the development of plans in response to the collected information; - response implementation, that is the implementation of designed plans. In particular, the authors underline the importance that all of these activities are not exclusively a concern of the marketing departments, but the entire organization should participate in generating marketing intelligence, disseminating it, and taking actions in response to it (Shapiro 1988). For example, market intelligence could be generated by R&D engineers and senior executives, but also each member of the personnel which, by interacting directly with customers, could know their current and future needs and the fac- tor affecting their decisions. As a consequence, the market intelligence could not always be disseminated from marketing departments to other departments, but it could flow in the opposite direction depending on where it is generated (Kohli and Jaworski 1990 ). The two perspectives cultural and behavioral could be considered as com- plementary. In fact, MO implies the development of an organizational culture that generates organizational capabilities, which manifest themselves in specific market- oriented behaviors. As Cadogan and Diamantopoulos (1995) explain, there are a lot of similarity and conceptual and operational overlaps between this two conceptuali- zations of market orientation. Export market orientation and its antecedents A firm’s market orientation is a distinctive competence that supports the firm’s activities and contributes to its performance. Many research studies have been devoted to studying 364 F. Pascucci et al. the relationship between MO and innovation (Ozkaya et al. 2015; Zhang and Duan 2010; Lukas and Ferrell 2000; Atuahene-Gima 1996), MO and business performance (Chao, College, and Spillan 2010; Kara, Spillan and De Shields 2005; Matsuno, Mentzer, and Ozsomer 2002; Pitt, Caruana, and Berthon 1996), MO and strategic performance (Dong et al. 2013) in different industrial, national, and competitive contexts, and with reference to different types of firm (e.g. family businesses [Zachary et al. 2011]; or SMEs [Raju, Lonial, and Crum 2011]). A lesser amount of research has been directed toward investigating MO in an interna- tional business environment (Chi and Su 2013 ). In these studies, MO was represented as an antecedent of the internationalization process because it fosters and facilitates the learning process in foreign markets and the designing of proper market responses (Armario, Ruiz, and Armario 2008). MO is particularly important in an international con- text, because foreign markets are far more complex than domestic ones, and this complex- ity increases demand for market intelligence generation, dissemination, and responsiveness. Any measures of MO in an international context is now influenced by new information requirements about different elements such as law, logistics, political and economic systems, competition, culture, etc. So, the concept of market orientation has to be incorporated into firms’ export operations. Cadogan and Diamantopoulos (1995) were the first to offer a combination of the two conceptualizations of MO and to add an international dimension, introducing the con- struct of EMO. As Cadogan et al. (2001, 263) stated: Firms that are market-oriented in their export operations also generate, disseminate, and respond to market intelligence. However, the focus of this EMO behavior is towards export customers’ current and future needs, competition within the firm’s export markets, and other exogenous factors influencing the firm’s export performance. In other words, the nomological net of the concept of market orientation does not differ, whether a firm operates solely in its domestic market, or whether it (also) operates in international markets; only the qualitative focus of the activities comprising EMO behavior will differ from those market-oriented activities conducted only in domestic markets. So, they were the first to apply the instruments available to capture firm’s market ori- entation to an international environment. Finally, they discover a multi-item scale that can be used to measure international market orientation in an export context (Akyol and Akehurst 2003) and describe the EMO as consisting in the following three information- processing-relating components: - EIG includes all activities involved in creating export market information (e.g. export market research; export assistance); - EID includes sharing of market intelligence generated to the relevant individuals and departments within the firm; - EIR includes activities aimed at designing and implementing responses to changes occurring in the firm’s environment (degree of product standardization, for- eign pricing policies, export customer service). In their first study (1995), Cadogan and Diamantopulos analyze the factors that may inhibit a firm’s ability to generate, disseminate and respond to market intelligence in a foreign environment. With regard to intelligence generation, ‘foreign market experience’, ‘availability and quality of information’, and ‘reliance on third parties’ are mentioned as the main constraints. At the same time, the dissemination process may be slowed down  Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship 365 by the overload of information for individuals and departments, the distortion/purification of data, and the organizational complexity. Finally, regarding the third component (EIR) they state that the responsiveness in international markets depends on two important fac- tors: the rationale underlying response formulation (are the decisions in international mar- kets based upon market intelligence or upon subjective assessments?) and the human resource policies (ethnocentric versus national staffing policies). Later, some of these constraints and factors have been considered in another stream of research works that pertains to the antecedents of EMO. The level of EMO is derived from the capabilities a firm possesses. As per Cadogan, Diamantopoulos, and Siguaw (2002), within the broad MO literature, several antecedent factors have been identi- fied (e.g. formalization, centralization, risk aversion, firm size), but they may not be valid also in the international environment (Cadogan et al. 2001, 262): It cannot be taken for granted that factors which tend to act as antecedents at the organiza- tional level or domestic level necessarily play the same role in facilitating or inhibiting mar- ket oriented behavior at the exporting level … consequently, contextualizing market orientation antecedents to the exporting setting is required to protect against incorrectly gen- eralizing antecedent factor beyond the purely domestic marketing context. Some main antecedents of EMO are export experience, export dependence, export coordination, export environment, export development indicator, export systems, etc. However, there is a scarcity of research into the antecedents of market-oriented behavior of exporters, and there is the need to better analyze the applicability of the market- oriented antecedents into export market behavior. In particular, Kwon and Hu (2000) elaborated a conceptual framework that analyzes the link between MO and business performance in a group of exporters. They also try to analyze which capabilities (antecedents) of an exporter would lead to a better level of MO. They used six items to indirectly measure the capabilities of a Korean exporter: number of years of export experience, number of employees, establishment of an export department, long-range export planning, research and development department, and exporter’s commitment to internationalization. The findings of the study suggest that, as an exporter becomes more market-oriented, it typically has more years of export experi- ence, larger firm size, more likely to have a stand-alone export department, long-range export marketing plan and research department, and strong management commitment to internationalization. So, they demonstrated that the level of MO is highly correlated with the extent of internationalization, since firms shift the focus to international markets and intensify the information gathering and dissemination activities among the departments. Another recent study (Lin, Huang, and Peng 2014), in order to analyze the mediating role of EMO in the relationship between interorganizational relationships and export perfor- mance, demonstrated that commitment, trust, and social interactions between an exporter and its export partners have positive effects on EMO. The relationship between EMO and export performance There are many of prior research works that have studied the relationship between EMO and export performance. They reveal a positive link, both direct and indirect (Racela and Thoumrungroje 2014; Chung 2012; Miocevic and Crnjak-Karanovic 2012; Singh and Mahmood 2013; Akyol and Akehurst 2003). Regarding the first group, Kwon and Hu (2000) demonstrated that MO in the export markets leads to better export performance 366 F. Pascucci et al. regardless of market conditions and intensity of competition. Also, Akyol et al. (2003) studied the direct link between the dimensions of EMO and the dimensions of export per- formance (measured in terms of export sales, export growth, satisfaction with export operation, competitive performance, and overall export performance) among Turkish clothing companies. With the use of multidimensional model, they demonstrated a strong relationship between the two constructs. Other studies tested the relationship indirectly through the use of other variables; for example, the levels of communication frequency and communication quality with over- seas distributors (Racela and Thoumrungroje 2014), competitive and technology contexts in which firms operate (Cadogan, Cui, and Kwok Yeung Li 2003), and firms’ managerial ties (Chung 2012). In literature, there are two main different approaches to study this relationship, based on the way the construct of EMO is conceived and measured. Previous studies used to adopt an aggregation process: the components of export market intelligence generation, dissemination, and responsiveness are formed into a composite and used to test the research models. The most important result of these studies is that EMO activities, in gen- eral, are strongly related to export performance and success (Cadogan, Diamantopoulos, and Siguaw 2002). On the other hand, recent research works call for a disaggregated approach to examine the relationship between EMO and export performance, considering individual EMO components separately (Dong et al. 2016; Chung 2012; Sørensen 2009). In this way, it is possible to better understand which EMO component has a higher impact on export performance and it is also possible to analyze the relationships among them. In fact, it is demonstrated that different EMO components have differential effects on export performance. An empirical validation for the importance of the disaggregated approach can be found in the study of Murray et al. (2007), which used the three independent factor structure of EMO in order to discover the differences between Chinese and non-Chinese firms. The use of the disaggregated approach allows them to find out that EMO has signif- icant effects on export performance for both Chinese and non-Chinese firms, but the effects of individual components of EMO are not the same in both populations. For exam- ple, EIG is positively related to financial performance and satisfaction only for non-Chi- nese firms; the opposite happens when we consider the effects of EIR on export performance. So, the three components of EMO ‘are not interchangeable and have differ- ent effects on performance consequences’ (Murray et al. 2007). The research model On the basis of the literature review, we developed the conceptual model illustrated in Figure 1. The objective of our work is to provide new insights into the relationship between ‘export market orientation’ and “export performance” and answer two different research questions: RQ (1). Verify the influence of EMO on export performance, following a ‘disaggregated approach’ that consider EMO components individually and not as a composite. RQ (2). Explore the EMO antecedents, in order to verify the conditions that can favor the development of an export-oriented behavior. In particular, we try to address the following research hypothesis: - H1. Export experience is positively related to EIG and to EID.  Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship 367 Figure 1. Conceptual model and research hypotheses. It can be supposed that the more experienced exporter will have greater access to information sources from which greater knowledge concerning customer needs can be gained and appropriate responses can be formulated; but empirical research studies have shown mixed findings (Cadogan et al. 2006; Cadogan, Diamantopoulos, and Siguaw 2002; Moen and Servais 2002; Cadogan et al. 2001; Kwon and Hu 2000). - H2. Export department is positively related to EIG and to EID. It can be supposed that firms with an export department can be in a better position to develop market-oriented behaviors (Kwon and Hu 2000). The use of an export depart- ment can be an indicator of the firm’s export commitment (Koh 1991). - H3. EIG and EID are positively related to EIR. As indicated in previous studies, we suppose that market intelligence generation and dissemination are fundamental drivers of responsiveness. (Murray et al. 2007) - H4. EIR is positively related to export performance. The export performance depends on response design and response implementation, which is on the firm’s capability to use market intelligence in an effective way (Murray et al. 2007). Previous studies developed and tested the EMO construct principally on large firms and so, the applicability of this construct to SMEs was questioned. Because of the differ- ences between SMEs and larger organizations, it can be supposed that EMO plays a different role in SMEs (Raju, Lonial, and Crum 2011, 1320 1321): […]In spite of these liabilities SME are often highly market oriented and known how to com- pete effectively with larger organizations […] It is possible that SME may be quite distinct from larger organizations in terms of how they integrate various elements such as informa- tion processing knowledge, and responsiveness into a unique strategic resource. However, the empirical research on this subject has been scanty (Singh and Mahmood 2013; Miocevic and Crnjak-Karanovic 2012) and so, further investigation is needed. Our work tries to fill this gap, investigating the influence of each EMO component on the export performance of a sample of SMEs. Research methodology and design Sample and data collection The empirical research consists of a survey, conducted by using cross-sectional data of a sample of Italian small and medium-sized coffee roasting firms. We chose the roasting 368 F. Pascucci et al. industry because it is one of the most representative industries of the Made in Italy sector abroad and it controls a significant international market share (Pascucci 2014). Italy is the second most exporter, after Switzerland, with 1,422,574,708$ of roasted coffee (not decaffeinated) sold abroad (UN Comtrade Database 2014). Exporting through foreign dis- tributors is their prevailing entry strategy of Italian firms and the relationship with distrib- utors is a strategic factor in order to gain a competitive advantage in foreign markets. Cross-sectional design was selected because the objective of our study is to explore and describe the relationship between EMO and export performance, without examining causality. The data were collected over a two-month period during 2013 2014. The sample was drawn from a listing of the Italian roasting companies ranging in size from 10 to 250 employees (excluding micro-enterprises, according to the European Commission defini- tion); a random sample of 300 roasting firms were contacted by email to inform them of the study and to identify appropriate key informants. To enhance the quality and the reli- ability of the responses, respondents were guaranteed anonymity and confidentiality in the analysis and in the reporting of the results. From the initial mailing, 64 complete ques- tionnaires were returned, for a response rate of 21.3%. Non-response bias was tested using a t-test to compare early (the first 75% of the returned questionnaires) and late (the last 25% of the responses) respondents on all the variables of the model (Armstrong and Overton 1977; Weiss and Heide 1993). The test did not reveal significant differences (at the 0.10 level) and so, the sample can be considered reasonably representative. Furthermore, the sample composition is quite similar to the target population, in terms of firm size and geographic range. In fact, most of the Italian roasting companies are small and they are distributed all over Italy. Measurement of research constructs and analysis method Existing measures were adapted for this study. In particular, for EMO we used the meas- ures proposed by Cadogan, Diamantopoulos, and Mortanges (1999) and Cadogan et al. (2001, 2006). The questionnaire was pretested by five managers, thus ensuring that the questions were relevant and phrased in a meaningful manner; on the basis of their com- ments, some modifications were necessary according to particular characteristics of the Italian roasting companies. This provided evidence of content validity of the scale. The revised set of measures for the three dimensions of EMO includes 17 items (they are indi- cated in Table 1). These items were measured on a 7-point scale (1 D strongly disagree; 7 D strongly agree). Table 2 shows the internal consistency for each of the three dimen- sions (Cronbach’s alpha >0.70) and for the combined 17-item scale. As regards export performance, the data were collected for the entire export function, because the purpose of the study is the analysis of the overall degree of export perfor- mance and not of a single/multiple export venture (Oliveira, Cadogan, and Souchon 2012). The small size of the firms in the sample made it difficult to identify the export ventures and their economic results. A sales-related measure of export performance was employed, such as export intensity (export sales/total sales). It is a widely used objective measure of export performance in the literature (Katsikeas, Leonidou, and Morgan 2000; Sousa 2004; Fernandez-Mesa and Alegre 2015). The firm’s capabilities are indirectly measured through the following two items: the firm’s international business experience that is, operationalized as the number of years in international business (NUM_YEARS) and the number of countries to which the firm  Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship 369 Table 1. Export market orientation items. 1. Export intelligence generation We meet our sales force regularly. We meet our foreign customers regularly. We measure export customer satisfaction regularly. We generate a lot of information in order to understand the forces which influence our overseas customers’ needs and preferences. We generate a lot of information concerning trends (e.g. regulation, politics, economy) in our export markets. We collect information through informal channels too. 2. Export intelligence dissemination We have interfunctional meetings regularly to discuss trends and developments in an export markets. When one department finds out something important about foreign markets, it is quick to alert other departments. Export sales personnel share their information and experiences with the other personnel. Results of market researches are shared within the company. Important information about export competitors is often lost in the system ( ). Important information about foreign customers is often lost in the system ( ). 3. Export intelligence responsiveness If a major competitor wants to launch an intensive campaign targeted on foreign customers, we would implement a response immediately. We are quick to respond to significant changes in our competitors’… in foreign markets. We rapidly respond to competitive actions that threaten us in our export markets. We rapidly respond to foreign customers complaints. If a foreign customer requires a product or service change, we rapidly respond. Table 2. Internal consistency of EMO measures. No. of items Cronbach’s alpha Export market orientation 17.842 Export intelligence generation 6.755 Export intelligence dissemination 6.773 Export intelligence responsiveness 5.804 exports (FOREIGN_MARKETS) and the establishment of an export department (DEPT), Yes/No. The relationships are examined using regression. Main findings The descriptive statistics are presented in Table 3. The sample of 64 roasting companies has, on average, 16.1 years of experience in exporting, 37% of export intensity, and 63.8% of the companies has a separate export department. The average number of foreign markets to which the firms export is 20. However, for these variables, there is a significant variability in the sample. The majority of the firms followed a traditional and gradual 370 F. Pascucci et al. Table 3. Descriptive statistics of the variables. Mean Coefficient of variation EXP_INT 37.0426 0.715287 NUM_YEARS 16.1064 0.640174 FOREIGN_MARKETS 20.3404 0.826053 DEPT 0.638298 0.760911 EIG 4.23106 0.285202 EID 4.35106 0.294846 EIR 5.12064 0.260633 EMO 4.44064 0.232762 internationalization process; only 18 firms began to export after 0 4 years from their foundation and they are the younger ones. The most important export market is Western Europe, followed by Eastern Europe. Overall, the average EMO score of the analyzed firms is 4.44, with EIR more elevated (5.12) than EID (4.35) and EIG (4.23). So, roasting firms seem to be more inclined to respond to market changes than to generate and share market information. This fact can be due to decision and organizational flexibility that is typical of SMEs. On the contrary, they show some difficulties in the systematic market information collection and processing. As regards this variable, there is a greater homogeneity among the firms of the sample. The results of regression analysis are reported in Table 4. The number of foreign mar- kets and whether or not there is a separate export department are variables that are signifi- cantly and positively related to the two components of EMO (EIG and EID). On the contrary, the number of years has no impact on them. So, H1 is only partially supported and H2 is supported. These results show how it is only partially true that the level of EMO is highly correlated with the extent of internationalization (Kwon and Hu 2000); in fact even if international experiences has been typically viewed as a good thing in interna- tional context (e.g. Williams and Chaston 2004), our results didn’t find a significant impact of this variable on the two components of EMO. Regarding the other hypotheses, it is found that EIG and EID are positively and significantly related to EIR, thus support- ing H3. So, the firms are more likely to have a higher extent of responsiveness when gen- erate and disseminate export information inside the organization. Finally, it is revealed that EIR positively influences the firm’s export intensity, thus supporting H4. This is in line with the disaggregated approach which supports the existence of a strong and direct impact of responsiveness on business export performance, and an indirect influence of EID and EIG on export performance via responsiveness. As previous research works stated, the information collected in the generation and dissemination process would become evident only when it is properly implemented and auctioned (Chung 2012; Cadogan, Diamantopoulos, and Siguaw 2002; Kwon and Hu 2000). Implications, limitations, and future research Some managerial and theoretical implications can be drawn from this study. First of all, it has a number of important implications for roasting company managers and in particular of SME firms.  Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship 371 Table 4. Summary of the results of regression analysis. EIG EID Coefficient p-Value Coefficient p-Value  Constant 3.77995 0.000575 4.07405 0.000137 FOREIGN_MARKETS 0.551369 0.0713 0.241010 0.0909 NUM_YEARS ¡0.000585035 0.9738 ¡0.00423351 0.8171 DEPT 0.752190 0.0812 1.30883 0.0106 R-square 0.385959 0.453620 F 0.0851 0.070573 EIR Coefficient p-Value Constant 2.68487 0.0005 EIG 0.342082 0.0608 EID 0.227162 0.0821 R-Square 0.418865 F 0.004365 EXP_INT Coefficient p-Value Constant 38.4538 0.0179 EIR 0.675603 0.0515 R-square 0.54369 F 0.003578  p  0.10; p  0.05 Our work confirms previous research findings about the positive relationship between EMO and export performance, adopting the disaggregated approach. Empirical research suggests that firms exhibiting market-oriented behavior in their export activity are more successful in foreign markets than their less market-oriented competitors. Firms wishing to improve their export performance should invest in generating and sharing market infor- mation with the relevant decision-makers and then using it to take the most appropriate actions in the foreign market. In particular, responsiveness is vital, that is, the actions taken in response to market intelligence generated and shared within the organization; in other words, information generates value only if it is used in the decision process in an effective way and at the right time. The mere possession of market information does not automatically leads to better export performance. Therefore, our results confirm the importance of information-related capabilities also in the context of SMEs; these capabil- ities foster the firm’s responsiveness, that is, the capacity to respond to foreign market changes in an efficient and effective way, in order to gain a competitive advantage and obtain superior export performance. Furthermore, managers can use the EMO scale used in this study, in order to assess the level of a company’s EMO; this can be the starting point in an improvement process, regarding each component of EMO. As regards the antecedents of EMO, the presence of an export department can facili- tate the generation and dissemination of information, whereas the firm’s international experience is significant only for the geographical scope of the firm’s export activity. The 372 F. Pascucci et al. length of time a firm has been exporting is not a relevant factor; this is probably due to the fact that many firms in the sample have a consolidated presence in a few, culturally simi- lar markets, and so, their informational needs are reduced. As the number of foreign mar- kets increases, the firms have a greater need to collect and use information; hence, their EIG and EID increase. From a theoretical point of view, we provide two main contributions to the literature: (1) we have extended previous empirical studies on EMO in the Italian context and in par- ticular in a mature industry, such as coffee bean roasting; (2) we have demonstrated the applicability of the concept on SMEs and the positive influence of EMO on the export performance of SMEs; (3) we confirm the effectiveness of the disaggregated approach to the analysis of the relationship between EMO and export performance. In other words, the three components of EMO cannot all be put on the same level, because they have dif- ferent implications. There are several limitations of this study. First of all, the self-reporting nature of the survey can introduce the possibility of the respondents providing desired and not actual responses. Second, the relationship between EMO and export performance was measured in a single time period; a longitudinal study can provide a richer understanding of the phenomenon. This study is, out of necessity, limited to the national boundaries of Italy, and thus, the results can be culture-specific and hardly generalizable. Therefore, the findings have a certain restricted external validity. Moreover, the findings of this study are limited by the industry-specific focus of the research. Nevertheless, previous studies have shown that there were no significant differences among industries in any of the MO scales or in any of the performance scales (Deshpande, Farley, and Webster 1993; Kohli, Jaworski and Kumar 1993). However, future studies can consider other industries, with a different com- petitive and technological landscape. A further restriction of the generalizability of results is caused by the relatively small size of the sample, even if the minimum ratio of observations to independent variables is respected (Hair et al. 2006). Some additional limitations pertain to the analysis of the EMO antecedent factors. We have identified only two possible antecedent factors; so, future research works could investigate additional factors. Considering the fundamental role of entrepreneur in an SME’s strategy formulation and organization, his personal/cultural characteristics (e.g. risk-taking attitude, global mindset, age and educational background, previous interna- tional experiences) could be an interesting area of study. Conclusions The main objective of this research is to examine the relationship between ‘export market orientation’ and ‘export performance’. Besides, we also want to investigate the influence of some antecedents of EMO through the use of a disaggregated approach. In particular, the study is designed to explore whether intelligence generation and dissemination have a direct effect on responsiveness and whether responsiveness has an impact on the export performance of the firms. From the literature review emerged that a relatively small num- ber of empirical studies have expanded MO research to the international business envi- ronment (Chi and Su 2013) and to small and medium-sized firms, in particular (Singh and Mahmood 2013). So we provide empirical evidence of some antecedents of EMO and its contribution to export performance in the context of SMEs.  Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship 373 The results reveal that the impact of EIG and EID is likely to have an indirect effect on export performance, via responsiveness. This result has some important implication for roasting managers on handling the export information in order to take the most appro- priate actions in the foreign market. In particular, they must learn that the mere possession of market information does not automatically lead to better export performance, but infor- mation generates value only if it is used in the decision process in an effective way and at the right time. Thus the responsiveness is the key component of EMO, with a positive and strong effect on export performance. Regarding the antecedent of EMO, the presence of an export department has been proved to facilitate the generation and dissemination of information, while the international experience has only a partial influence on the two components of EMO. In fact, while the number of foreign countries in which a firm exports seems to be relevant, the number of years in international markets has no signifi- cant influence on the generation and dissemination of export marketing intelligence. In conclusion, the study not only extends previous empirical research works on EMO in the Italian context but also demonstrates its applicability in the case of SMEs, and con- firms the effectiveness of the disaggregated approach. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. Notes on Contributors Federica Pascucci is an assistant professor of Internet and Marketing at Universit
a Politecnica delle Marche, Italy. She conducts research on digital marketing and international marketing, with particu- lar reference to SMEs. Sara Bartoloni (Corresponding Author) is a PhD student in Management at Universit
a Politecnica delle Marche, Italy. Her research interests include Internet and marketing, mobile marketing, and international marketing. Gian Luca Gregori is a full professor at Economics Faculty ‘G. Fu
a’ and vice rector at Universit
a Politecnica delle Marche, Italy. His main research interests include marketing, business marketing, and service marketing. ORCID Federica Pascucci http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7326-6067 Gian Luca Gregori http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9220-7970 References Akyol, A., and G. Akehurst. 2003. “An Investigation of Export Performance Variations Related to Corporate Export Market Orientation”. European Business Review 15 (1): 5 19. Armario, J. M., D. M. Ruiz, and E. M. Armario. 2008. “Market Orientation and Internationalization in Small and Medium-Sized Firms”. Journal of Small Business Management 46 (4): 485 511. Armstrong, J. S., and T. S. Overton. 1977. “Estimating nonresponse bias in mail surveys”. Journal of Marketing Research 14 (3): 396 402. Atuahene-Gima, K. 1996. “Market Orientation and Innovation”. Journal of Business Research 35 (2): 93 103. Barney, J. B. 1991. “Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage”. Journal of Manage- ment 17 (1): 99 120. 374 F. Pascucci et al. 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