Integrating small and medium sized firms into e-business for export marketing

Abstract

In this dissertation, the main objective is to assess the relationships between readiness to e-business and export performance. Additionally, it is aimed to discover whether the relationships between readiness to e-business and both overall and competitive export performance is moderated by the level of perceptions of barriers to integrate to e-business, promotions for e-business and trust and security concerns.In the introduction, the importance of e-business in export marketing for small and medium sized firms is explored. The scope and the objective of the study are also provided in this section. A detailed literature review has been presented in the second section. A comprehensive conceptual model, which includes the antecedents of the constructs used in this study from the literature is presented in the third section. For the collection of the data 100 small and medium sized firms were administered a structured and undisguised questionnaire. SPSS 12.0 has been used for the statistical part of the study. Pearson correlation, One-way ANOVA, t-test, Fisher's Z-tests and moderated regression analyses have been conducted for the test of the hypotheses. Findings suggest that more frequently the companies carry their customer transactions online, and higher their competitive intensity, the higher will be their overall and competitive export performance. Firms with longer export experience perform better in terms of overall export performance, whereas less experienced firms perform better in competitive export performance. Technical barriers and knowledge related promotions moderate the relationship between customer transactions carried online and export performance. It is important to note that e-marketspaces are not used by the small and medium sized firms in terms of exporting activities. Finally, several implications have been proposed for the small and medium sized firms and for the government organizations serving them. Future research areas are also designated. This study aims to contribute to the relevant literature by providing a comprehensive literature review, theoretical framework and an empirical study on the selected topics.