Studentships
Business School
Drivers and Moderators of Export Performance: an Evidence based Study of Scottish Exporters
Dr Francisco Ramos
francisco.ramos@uws.ac.uk
Many studies have been conducted, particularly in recent years, leading to the resurgence and development of seven major research streams in the literature. These streams are concerned with:
the factors that stimulate (induce) a firm’s decision to initiate exporting or assure the exporting activity
the problems or barriers faced by firms when initiating exporting or maintaining export operations
the elements which influence export development
network relationships and their role in export development and internationalization
the nature, importance and utilization of information acquired for export marketing decision making
the nature and effectiveness of governments’ promotion and assistance programs;
the identification of the factors that influence export performance, with a particular emphasis on the export marketing strategy - export performance relationship
This research project will be on this last stream of literature. This last stream is a particularly interesting and timely topic specially, if we consider the firms’ survival and growth, and the consequent economic growth of many countries, is strongly dependent on a better understanding of the key drivers and moderators influencing firms’ exporting performance.
The main objectives of this research are:
- To produce a systematic review of the literature concerning the major drivers (factors) and moderators (obstacles) of Scottish export performance.
To postulate a general framework, where the export performance is explained by two groups of variables: the drivers, which represent the main effects on export performance and the moderators, which increase or reduce the magnitude of the drivers on export performance.