Export marketing assistance and early internationalizing firm performance : Does export commitment matter?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contingent relationship between government marketing assistance for export and the performance of early internationalizing firms in a developing country’s low-tech industry. Design/methodology/approach – The authors employ hierarchical multiple regression based on the data obtained from Bangladesh, a south Asian developing country and a leading exporter of apparel products worldwide. The authors used a sample of 224 early internationalizing apparel firms to test the hypotheses. Findings – Research describes the relationship between export assistance and performance as direct. Recently, some researchers have suggested moderators between them. The authors argue that the relationship between the two is contingent on the level of export commitment. The authors find that neither informational nor experiential marketing assistance is directly related to export performance. The relationship between informational assistance and export performance is significantly, but (unexpectedly) negatively, moderated by export commitment. The effect of experiential assistance is positively, but only marginally, moderated by export commitment. Originality/value – Contrary to researchers’ overarching focus on a direct relationship, the authors investigate the moderation on the relationship between export informational and experiential marketing assistance, and early internationalizing firms’ performance in a developing country’s low-tech industry setting. The authors use export commitment as the moderator; it is one of the most important internal determinants of export performance and extremely relevant in early internationalizing firms. The differential impact of informational and experiential assistance provides additional insights.