مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد ارزیابی مدیرتی عملکرد صادراتی – الزویر 2018

The academic interest in the concept of export performance dates back to very early studies, for example, to Tookey (1964) who examined successful British exporters. In early reviews, Madsen (1987), Aaby and Slater (1989), and Gemünden (1991) pointed to the complexity of the construct, since it implies for instance short-term as well as long-term aspects, various levels of analysis (e.g. firm or venture), and economic versus non-economic factors. Diamantopoulos (1998) asserted that export performance is multifaceted and therefore is open to multiple objective and subjective indicators. Zou and Stan (1998) pointed to the importance of distinguishing between economic and noneconomic aspects of performance, the former pertaining to sales and profitability and the latter to strategic issues such as knowledge creation and network building. Still, a variety of different approaches are used in the measurement of export performance. Examples from recent research are the firm’s export intensity (Kim & Hemmert, 2016; Love, Roper, & Zhou, 2016; Kahiya & Dean, 2014; Wang, Cao, Zhou, & Ning, 2013), export profitability, market share, growth, or margins (Alteren & Tudoran, 2016; Dhanaraj & Beamish, 2003; Kahiya & Dean, 2014) or perceived, subjective assessments made by top managers, for example satisfaction with sales and profitability or satisfaction with financial and strategic results (Azar & Ciabuschi, 2017; Oura, Zilber, & Lopes, 2015; Julian, Mohamad, Ahmed, & Sefnedi, 2014; Filatotchev, Liu, Buck, & Wright, 2009). Literature reviews demonstrate that managers’ subjective perception of export performance is often used as a measure of export performance. The most recent review of 124 export performance studies (Chen, Sousa, & He, 2016) reports fragmented measures of export performance. A total of 53 different measures are used. The majority of measures are economic (profitability, export sales/growth, export intensity), but also subjective measures (satisfaction, goal achievement) are used in numerous studies. The use of subjective measures is, however lower that reported by Sousa (2004). The studies he reviewed applied 50 different measures of export performance, out of which almost 80% were subjective measures, often expressed as managers’ satisfaction with various aspects of their firm’s export activities. However, the existing literature does not inform us much about what managers have in mind when they assess satisfaction with export activities. It remains unclear what such subjective measures reflect. Are managers satisfied with the firm’s export activities due to a high percentage of the total firm sales that are exported (export share), export sales, growth, profitability, or because they learn by exporting, they manage to identify new key customers, or is their satisfaction due to other noneconomic aspects? Numerous studies attempt to understand how a firm’s export performance depends on organizational competences, managerial skills, and environmental conditions such as competition and consumption patterns. Many these studies use subjective assessments as the dependent variable, but very few studies have attempted to understand and analyze the relationship between objective and subjective measures of export performance (e.g. Stoian, Rialp, & Rialp, 2011; Diamantopoulos & Kakkos, 2007). More in-depth understanding of the underlying aspects of such subjective measures is therefore of utmost importance. This is exactly what the current study aims to achieve.