An Assessment of the Exporting Literature: Using Theory and Data to Identify Future Research Directions

TL;DR: The authors provide a qualitative review of the core theoretical exporting areas and evaluate the exporting domain quantitatively over six decades (1958-2016) using multidimensional scaling and apply established bibliometric principles to offer an understanding of the field and to provide suggestions for future exporting research.

Abstract: Exporting research is an established facet of the field of international marketing. That stated, the radical increase in recent export activity necessitates a sustained research effort devoted to the topic. In this article, the authors provide a qualitative review of the core theoretical exporting areas and evaluate the exporting domain quantitatively over six decades (1958–2016). For the quantitative analysis, they use multidimensional scaling and apply established bibliometric principles to offer an understanding of the field and to provide suggestions for future exporting research. For the evaluations, the authors used data from 830 articles with 52,191 citations from 35 journals. Using cocitation analysis as the basis to evaluate the data, they propose a series of intellectual structure implications on exporting that relate to internationalization process stages, dynamic capabilities, knowledge scarcity, social networks, export marketing strategy, absorptive capacity and learning, and nonlinea...

Summary

Internationalization

• In reviewing the role of exporting within the internationalization of firms, Johanson and Vahlne s (1977) so-called Uppsala Internationalization Model is considered a core contribution, as the model positions exporting as a stage of internationalization.
• Specifically, these authors (Johanson and 6 Vahlne 1977, 2009) posit that exporting is often the initial step in an establishment chain.
• The RBV asserts that firms can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage based on the organization of their resources (Wernerfelt 1984).
• Dynamic capabilities may be replicated by other firms, but it is the configuration of key resources that leads to a firm s competitive advantage (Eisenhardt and Martin 2000).
• Grant (1996) describes the key areas and roles in which knowledge as an input is a means for production.

Transaction Cost Economics

• TCE, sometimes referred to as transaction cost analysis (Rindfleisch and Heide 1997), views the firm and the market as alternative governance mechanisms (Coase 1937).
• Institutionalization requires firms to balance and respect relations within the internal and external environment.
• To begin the bibliometric evaluation of the exporting literature, the authors identified articles related to the topic by searching 35 academic journals from the inception of the topic's emergence in the literature.
• Then, the authors used MDS to determine each period's stress value (or, goodness of fit).
• This was done using the occurrence of publications appearing in research groups in subsequent time periods and provided the basis for an analysis of the domain's development across the study's four periods (Samiee, Chabowski, and Hult 2015).

Exporting Literature Intellectual Structure, 1958-1992

• Illustrated in Figure 1 are the seven research groups from the first period of their study.
• By incorporating topics related to the internationalization process, a staged approach to exporting is established during this time period (Johanson and Vahlne 1977; Wiedersheim-Paul, Olson, and Welch 1978).
• By emphasizing smaller firms, there appears to be a greater focus on the processes related to the entry decisions of this unique condition (Dichtl et al. 1984; Reid 1984).
• Anchored by research emphasizing organizational characteristics (Cavusgil 1984a), the exporting literature also focused on the export decision-maker (Group 6) and export marketing behavior (Group 7).
• This allowed for greater detail in research at the managerial level (Reid 1981) and the marketing function (Cavusgil and Nevin 1981).

Exporting Literature Intellectual Structure, 1993-2002

• The twelve research groups in this period are displayed in Figure 2.
• Another chain of groups emphasizing internationalization (Groups 6-8) relates to internationalization models and processes (Andersen 1993; Johanson and Vahlne 1990).
• Extending this approach, research on internationalization, innovation, and organizational capabilities of small firms (Group 2) shows the multifaceted nature of topics that are studied related to the internationalization process.
• Another 20 topic which emerged centered on commitment, trust, and export channel performance (Group 6).
• One research clique focusing on export management, marketing strategy, and performance (Group 7) supports the trend to relate the export literature to performance outcomes.

Exporting Literature Intellectual Structure, 2013-2016

• The fourteen research groups during this four-year time period appear in Figure 4.
• This position must be taken into consideration as the topic of firm internationalization (Group 1) represented by the traditional approach is distinctive in its contribution to the domain.
• Still, anchored by an emphasis on market entry growth via learning (Zahra, Ireland, and Hitt 2000), three topics focusing on rapid international expansion (Group 9), knowledge intensity and international expansion (Group 10), and knowledge, learning, and innovation (Group 12) are connected to the overall view of internationalization models.
• As the focal group in a chain of research topics, the clique emphasizing resources, positional advantage, and performance (Group 4) possesses a holistic perspective of the export process.
• This perspective was extended even further with a separate and complementary focus on dynamic capabilities (Group 7) and resources and capabilities (Group 8) during this time frame.

Longitudinal Development of Exporting Research

• To note the longevity of particular research topics, as shown in Figure 5, influential publications appearing in research groups were coupled across time periods to show expansion or contraction for a given subject.
• This specific area expanded in the last period of the study to emphasize research related to rapid international expansion (Group 9), knowledge, learning, and innovation (Group 12), knowledge intensity and international expansion (Group 10), learning, innovation, 24 and internationalization speed (Group 13), experience and internationalization speed (Group 14), and knowledge intensity and internationalization models (Group 11).
• For this portion of the manuscript, the authors go deeper to address 25 boundary conditions and theoretical fundamentals.
• Once these concepts are presented, the authors offer implications based on recent exporting research and discuss the implications of their findings for practitioners 26 by providing thoughts concerning this study's application to export management, international marketing, and public policy.

Implications for Exporting Theory from the Domain s Intellectual Structure

• The first opportunity for advancing the exporting literature comes from a scarcity of studies emphasizing the differences of capabilities, implementation, and performance in the internationalization process stages (Johanson and Wiedersheim-Paul 1975; Morgan, Katsikeas, and Vorhies 2012).
• Though recent work has looked at differences in exporter status as well as dynamic capabilities in the application of knowledge management (Gashi, Hashi, and Pugh 2014; Villar, Alegre, and Pla-Barber 2014), relatively little work has been done relating these two topics together.
• The third opportunity which may further the exporting domain relates to the synthesis of internationalization process inexperience cost with capabilities, implementation, and performance (Eriksson et al.

Implications for Future Exporting Theory from Recent Research

• On a more recent basis, the exporting literature can benefit from integrating organizational sense making and coordination capabilities.
• Broadly speaking, different innovation typologies should be investigated to better understand the impact innovation has on firm and country export performance by measuring data at the innovation, firm, and country level (Shaffer, Chastagner, and Umesh 2016).
• As customers needs and wants fluctuate as demand changes, firms are required to be flexible to accommodate these changes within their organizational structures and with their trading partners.
• Host market spillover effects have been found to improve firm product offerings (Frambach, Fiss, and Ingenbleek 2016; Silva, Gomes, and Lages 2017).

Figures

Figure 5: Longitudinal Development of Exporting Research

Figure 2: Exporting Literature Intellectual Structure, 1993-2002

Figure 3: Exporting Literature Intellectual Structure, 2003-2012

Figure 4: Exporting Literature Intellectual Structure, 2013-2016

Table 1: Overview of Main Theoretical Perspectives in Exporting Research

Figure 1: Exporting Literature Intellectual Structure, 1958-1992

Full text

This is a repository copy of An Assessment of the Exporting Literature: Using Theory and
Data to Identify Future Research Directions.
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Version: Accepted Version
Article:
Chabowski, B, Kekec, P, Morgan, NA et al. (3 more authors) (2018) An Assessment of the
Exporting Literature: Using Theory and Data to Identify Future Research Directions.
Journal of International Marketing, 26 (1). pp. 118-143. ISSN 1069-031X
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AN ASSESSMENT OF THE EXPORTING LITERATURE:
USING THEORY AND DATA TO IDENTIFY FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
Brian Chabowski
University of Tulsa
brian-chabowski@utulsa.edu
Pinar Kekec
University of Nebraska – Lincoln
prunnalls@unomaha.edu
Neil A. Morgan
Indiana University
namorgan@gmail.com
G. Tomas M. Hult
Michigan State University
hult@msu.edu
Travis Walkowiak
Nielsen N.V.
walkowiak@broad.msu.edu
Blake Runnalls
University of Nebraska – Lincoln
Brunnalls2@unl.edu

i
AN ASSESSMENT OF THE EXPORTING LITERATURE:
USING THEORY AND DATA TO IDENTIFY FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
ABSTRACT
Exporting research is an established aspect of the field of international marketing. That
stated, the radical increase in recent export activity has necessitated a sustained research effort
devoted to the topic. Based on the world’s emphasis on exporting, we provide a qualitative
review of the core theoretical exporting areas and then evaluate the exporting domain
quantitatively over six decades (1958-2016). For the quantitative analysis, we use
multidimensional scaling and apply established bibliometric principles to offer an understanding
of the field and to provide suggestions to be considered for future exporting research. With 35
journals contributing data to the study, 830 articles with 52,191 citations were used for the
evaluations. Using co-citation analysis as the basis to evaluate the data, we propose a series of
intellectual structure implications on exporting that relate to internationalization process stages,
dynamic capabilities, knowledge scarcity, social networks, export marketing strategy, absorptive
capacity and learning, and non-linear performance relationships involving marketing channel
relationships.

1
Exporting research has been discussed in significant ways in the academic literature since
1958 and it is becoming even more prominent in today’s scholarly literature. Basically,
international trade is prominent worldwide and exporting is the core vehicle for its growth. Since
2000, global merchandise exports have risen 150% from $6.055 trillion to $16.055 trillion in
2015, peaking at $19.123 trillion in 2014 (World Bank 2017). This increase in exporting is
testament to its focal position as a key driver of economic activity (Leonidou and Katsikeas
2010). In fact, the central importance of exporting to international business is well-established
and long-standing (Bilkey and Tesar 1977; Cavusgil and Zou 1994; Czinkota and Johnston 1983;
Leonidou and Katsikeas 1996). Long acknowledged as a swift way to penetrate international
markets (Johanson and Vahlne 1977, 1990; Root 1994), a vast array of topics has been examined
in exporting research, including behaviors and activities prior to export as well as the
relationship among issues such as export strategy, firm-based attributes, and performance (e.g.,
Cavusgil and Zou 1994; Christensen, da Rocha, and Gertner 1987; Wiedersheim-Paul, Olson,
and Welch 1978). Though exporting has been examined to a large degree in developed markets,
emerging markets have also been producing competitive exporters over this time period (Smits et
al. 2015; United Nations 2017). As a result, a dynamic and vibrant marketplace has been created
in which the exporting domain has grown substantially.
Along with the expansion in exporting activity among firms globally has come an
enlargement of the topic's analysis in the academic world. An emphasis on exporting research in
developed economies remains an important facet of the literature (Eberhard and Craig 2013;
Zeriti et al. 2014). However, there is also an increasing focus in studies on emerging markets due
to a general shift in business activity toward developing economies (Gashi, Hashi, and Pugh
2014; He, Brouthers, and Filatotchev 2013; Ju, Zhao, and Wang 2014). As a result, this changing

2
market focus of exporting has provided the opportunity to enrich and advance the central issues
of exporting research into new areas.
There has been considerable academic work providing overviews of the state of the
exporting literature. Usually, the most fundamental basis on which to base a current evaluation of
this research area is to categorize previous studies in some fashion (cf. Leonidou and Katsikeas
2010). These author-driven arrangements usually summarize the research design, research scope,
study methodology, and thematic areas of the extant literature. Such a classification approach is
also sometimes accompanied by a general discussion concerning research directions (Chen,
Sousa, and He 2016; Leonidou, Katsikeas, and Coudounaris 2010; Li, He, and Sousa 2017).
Taken together, these examinations of the exporting phenomenon provide an understanding of
the state of the field and some guidelines for the future. While we are due for such a literature
review, we also want to use state-of-the-art methodologies to glean a deeper understanding of
scholarly exporting works.
With this in mind, we increase the value of our review by evaluating the exporting
literature from a quantitative perspective and then offer future research- and practitioner-focused
suggestions based on the findings related to the domain's intellectual structure. We bring in
perspectives of both quantitative and qualitative mechanisms to the review. Our approach
reflects theory- and method-based overviews of exporting to offer distinct proposals for
consideration in future research. For instance, our qualitative approach on the exporting literature
reflects recent efforts to capture relevant theoretical perspectives which have influenced
exporting and international marketing (Aykol, Leonidou, and Zeriti 2012). In addition, whereas
meta-analyses focus on the construct as the unit of analysis (Leonidou et al. 2014), our
quantitative approach emphasizes the publication itself as the basis for examination. As such, we

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the contributions in "This is a repository copy of an assessment of the exporting literature: using theory and data to identify future research directions" ?

Based on the world’s emphasis on exporting, the authors provide a qualitative review of the core theoretical exporting areas and then evaluate the exporting domain quantitatively over six decades ( 1958-2016 ). For the quantitative analysis, the authors use multidimensional scaling and apply established bibliometric principles to offer an understanding of the field and to provide suggestions to be considered for future exporting research. With 35 journals contributing data to the study, 830 articles with 52,191 citations were used for the evaluations. Using co-citation analysis as the basis to evaluate the data, the authors propose a series of intellectual structure implications on exporting that relate to internationalization process stages, dynamic capabilities, knowledge scarcity, social networks, export marketing strategy, absorptive capacity and learning, and non-linear performance relationships involving marketing channel relationships. 

Q2. What future works have the authors mentioned in the paper "This is a repository copy of an assessment of the exporting literature: using theory and data to identify future research directions" ?

Future research should try to identify actions that can be taken by firms to move between different relationship stages as a result of economic change. Future researchers may consider a counter approach and test under which conditions psychic distance promotes learning, thus leading to more successful future market entries. Using institutional theory as a lens, future researchers may examine legitimacy issues within cognitive and regulatory contexts. Thus, future studies could explore how institutional gaps impact country image and attractiveness as well as how these gaps impact the development and success of export exchanges. 

Q3. What are the main factors that help to stabilize firms?

Normative forces help to routinize actions and behavior, allowing firms to stabilize (Emery and Trist 1965; Meyer and Rowan 1977; Terreberry 1968). 

Q4. What is the definition of a necessary and sufficient condition for marketing practice?

Managing relationships between exchange partners is a necessary and sufficient condition for marketing practice as marketing actions cannot take place without the exchange of value between trading parties (Alderson 1965). 

Q5. What are the main factors that contribute to the quality of partner relationships?

other dimensions such as reciprocity and cooperation have been included as contributing factors to the overall quality of partner relationships (Palmatier et al. 2006). 

Q6. What is the fifth direction that could benefit the exporting literature?

A fifth direction that could benefit the exporting literature relates to an integration ofinternationalization inexperience cost and export marketing strategy (Eriksson et al. 

Q7. What is the fourth topic that has not been studied much?

The fourth topic that has not been studied much relates to the combination of researchrelated to dynamic capabilities and social networks in emerging market export contexts (Teece, Pisano, and Shuen 1997; Zhou, Wu, and Luo 2007). 

Q8. What are the main factors that managers must consider when coordinating export strategy?

As resources can be categorized as organizational, entrepreneurial, and technological in nature, there are many human and technical factors which managers must consider when coordinating export strategy (Dhanaraj and Beamish 2003; Gashi, Hashi, and Pugh 2014). 

Q9. What are the three general issues which have become prominent in recent exporting research?

More directly, there are three general issues which have become prominent in recent exporting research: (1) information, knowledge, and learning; (2) resource configuration, market-oriented35organizational culture, and strategy; and (3) networking and inter-organizational relationships. 

Q10. What is the first opportunity for advancing the exporting literature?

The first opportunity for advancing the exporting literature comes from a scarcity ofstudies emphasizing the differences of capabilities, implementation, and performance in the internationalization process stages (Johanson and Wiedersheim-Paul 1975; Morgan, Katsikeas, and Vorhies 2012). 

Q11. What is the reason for the differences in the rate of innovation acceptance in export markets?

Based on innovation s disruptive nature, the rate of innovation acceptance in export markets will likely differ due to customers need to perceive value in new or modified offerings (Silva, Styles, and Lages 2017). 

Q12. What was the basis for the analysis of the domain's development?

This was done using theoccurrence of publications appearing in research groups in subsequent time periods and provided the basis for an analysis of the domain's development across the study's four periods (Samiee, Chabowski, and Hult 2015).