A vicarious learning perspective on the relationship between home-peer performance and export intensity among SMEs

Titelangaben

Baum, Matthias ; Sui, Sui ; Malhotra, Shavin:
A vicarious learning perspective on the relationship between home-peer performance and export intensity among SMEs.
In: International Marketing Review. Bd. 40 (2023) Heft 2 . - S. 197-223.
ISSN 1758-6763
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IMR-01-2022-0026

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Abstract

Purpose:
Home-peer firms (i.e., firms from the same industry and country) noticeably influence the internationalization behavior of small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing from vicarious learning literature, we theorize how home-peer firms' success in export markets affects SMEs' export intensity into those markets.
Design/methodology/approach: We test our hypotheses on a sample of 32,108 Canadian SME exporters. A Tobit model was used to examine the effect of home-peer performance and its interactions with firm age, export experience, and geographic and institutional distance on export entry intensity.
Findings: We find that SMEs are more likely to enter export markets with higher intensity if home-peer firms perform well in those markets. This home-peer influence is stronger when the SME lacks export experience, when the home-peer information is more recent, and when environmental uncertainty is high.
Originality: Our study is among the first to show empirically that the performance of home-peers positively influences the export intensity of SMEs in international markets, suggesting that SMEs use this measure to inform their internationalization strategies.