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Determinants of export performance: differences between service and manufacturing SMEs

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Abstract

We explore the relationships among knowledge sourcing, innovativeness, and export performance of a firm, and investigate how these links differ between service and manufacturing companies. Based on survey data from 4347 East German firms, we develop a structural equation model which enables us to disentangle the direct and indirect (via innovativeness) impact of knowledge sourcing on a firm’s export performance. We find that both internal and external knowledge influence a firm’s exports both directly path and indirectly via firm innovativeness (mediator variable). For service firms, external knowledge sourcing is more important for enhancing internal knowledge and innovativeness than for manufacturing companies.

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Notes

  1. The survey was carried out on behalf of the German Ministry of Education and Science.

  2. NACE is the Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Union (EU); the term NACE is derived from the French Nomenclature statistique des activités économiques dans la Communauté européenne.

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  1. BSP Business School Berlin, Calandrellistrasse 1-9, 12247, Berlin, Germany

    Anna Lejpras

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  1. Anna Lejpras
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Correspondence to Anna Lejpras.

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I thank Martin Anderson, Heike Belitz, Andreas Stephan, and the anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions. Furthermore, I gratefully acknowledge the suggestions and comments by seminar

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 7 and 8.

Table 7 Correlation coefficients
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Table 8 Estimation results—regression of manifest variables on control variables
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Lejpras, A. Determinants of export performance: differences between service and manufacturing SMEs. Serv Bus 13, 171–198 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11628-018-0376-7

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