Experiential and Informational Knowledge, Architectural Marketing Capabilities, and the Adaptive Performance of Export Ventures: A Cross-National Study

The Knowledge Base, Capabilities, and Performance of Export Ventures

Knowledge-based view theory views organizational performance as a function of an organization's ability to adapt to its environment (e.g., Cockburn, Henderson, & Stern, 2000; Grant, 1996a). This is consistent with the exporting literature, which indicates that the primary determinant of export venture performance is the venture's success in adapting to the particular requirements of its target export market (e.g., Albaum & Tse, 2001; Cavusgil & Zou, 1994). In understanding how export ventures adapt to their foreign market environments, the KBV literature posits that the ability to embed available informational and experiential knowledge in relevant organizational capabilities is a key theoretical premise (e.g., Kogut & Zander, 1992; Teece et al., 1997). Prior KBV research has identified the ability to leverage an existing knowledge base by transferring and combining knowledge to develop superior organizational capabilities as a driver of firms' success in adapting to their environments in terms of product and process innovation, managing competitive and regulatory risk, and utilizing available resources efficiently (e.g., Von Krogh et al., 2001).

The exporting literature indicates that in ventures' efforts to adapt to the export market environment in ways that achieve desired strategic goals, the most important organizational capabilities that can be created from an export venture's knowledge base concern architectural marketing capabilities (e.g., Cavusgil & Zou, 1994; Katsikeas, Piercy, & Ioannidis, 1996). Architectural marketing capabilities are defined in the literature as the processes by which firms plan appropriate combinations of available knowledge and other resources to deploy into their marketplace(s) and execute these planned resource deployments, transforming them into realized value offerings for target market(s) (e.g., Day, 1994; Madhavan & Grover, 1998; Vorhies & Morgan, 2003). Our export venture knowledge management framework, as depicted in Figure 1, therefore suggests that an export venture's knowledge base enables the development and utilization of architectural marketing capabilities that determine the extent to which the venture is able to adapt to the requirements of its target export market in ways that accomplish its strategic goals.

HYPOTHETICAL MODEL DEVELOPMENT

Our export venture knowledge management framework (Figure 1) draws on the KBV and exporting literature to provide a broad theory framework for identifying elements in the knowledge base and knowledge-related capabilities of export ventures that are relevant in understanding how knowledge management may enable superior export venture performance. Existing theoretical and empirical understanding of the various elements of our export venture knowledge management framework differs widely. For example, market information dissemination has been an area of considerable theoretical and empirical attention in the marketing literature (e.g., Maltz & Kohli, 1996). Similarly, learning has been extensively studied in both the psychology and management fields (e.g., Hult, Hurley, Giunipero, & Nichols, 2000). However, the knowledge-level, knowledge-type, and architectural marketing capability elements of our export venture knowledge management framework have received less research attention. It is on these aspects of export venture knowledge management that we therefore focus our attention in developing testable hypotheses.