گسترش توانمندی ها و کارایی های بازاریابی تجارت الکترونیکی به ازای عملکرد ارتقا یافته در فعالیت های صادراتی صنعتی Developing e-commerce marketing capabilities and efficiencies for enhanced performance in business-to-business export ventures

The importance of exporting in today’s global marketplace is undeniable. It is the most popular way for firms to engage with international markets (Leonidou & Katsikeas, 2010) and the most common mode of entry for small and medium-sized firms (Spyropoulou, Skarmeas, & Katsikeas, 2010). The value of worldwide exporting has now exceeded $18.5 trillion dollars and accounts for 23% of world GDP (World Bank, 2015; World Trade Organization, 2014). Export trade is expected to grow due in part to recent advances in communication, transportation, and information technologies. Given the importance of exporting and the unlimited growth potential in e-commerce technologies, little empirical research exists on how exporters leverage these technologies in developing efficiencies in exporting (Gregory, Karavdic, & Zou, 2007). Despite recent theoretical and conceptual advancements in identifying factors affecting exporting success (Morgan, Kaleka, & Katsikeas, 2004; Morgan, Katsikeas, & Vorhies, 2012; Morgan, Zou, Vorhies, & Katsikeas, 2003), there is still an absence of research integrating new technologies (e-commerce) into existing export theory. As one of the greatest technological developments in the last twenty years, e-commerce has driven revolutionary change in global business, with the primary benefits including entrance into new markets, increased customer base, streamlined supply chains, improved customer service, increased profits and reduced costs (Karavdic & Gregory, 2005). The transformation from traditional markets to e-markets demands specialized marketing capabilities housed in a supportive firm that is oriented toward achieving superior marketing efficiency. For industrial sellers there are numerous opportunities to develop specialized capabilities using information technology to enhance communications with buyers and improve distribution, purchasing and supply chain efficiencies. This is especially important for business-to-business (B2B) exporters as they often must enter new markets and manage relationships while being separated geographically from their venture markets. Investing in e-commerce resources has become customary practice in today’s exporting and consequently, easily duplicated by other firms. But simply investing in resources related to information technologies (IT) doesn’t assure success, leading researchers to challenge the direct effect of IT resources on performance (Ravichandran, Liu, Han, & Hasan, 2009). Recent findings using the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) suggests to focus on the outcomes of resource deployment processes (e.g. capabilities) and how firm capabilities aid in implementing firm strategies (Vorhies, Morgan, & Autry, 2009). Yet, despite the theoretical and conceptual advances in this field, surprisingly little empirical work has assessed whether technology-based capabilities aid in creating marketing efficiencies, as capabilities theory predicts (DeSarbo, Di Benedetto, & Song, 2007). The advancement and widespread use of e-commerce allows firms to leverage a whole new set of capabilities creating the level of global connectivity needed for successful exporting. Transforming technology-based resources into unique and specialized capabilities is essential for firms to achieve organizational efficiencies, and represents an important and un-explored area in the export literature (Katsikeas, 2006). Given the importance for international marketers to focus on developing resources and capabilities such as e-commerce, one important gap in the exporting literature is the lack of knowledge on how the integration of IT resources and capabilities enhances marketing efficiencies and improves exporting performance. Recent research provides a solid foundation we can draw upon establishing that resources can be developed into specialized distinctive marketing capabilities, which in turn can enhance marketing strategy implementation effectiveness and lead to higher export performance (Morgan et al., 2012). To fill this important research gap, we extend the authors’ capabilities–effectiveness– performance model to include e-commerce marketing capabilities, and then measure the subsequent impact on both marketing efficiencies (strategy implementation) and export performance. In doing so, we extend existing RBV theory by developing and validating a capability–effi- ciency–performance model. By incorporating e-commerce marketing capabilities we are better able to explain how exporters use IT to develop efficiencies and enhance export performance. Our approach adds to the growing body of literature and provides a stronger foundation for studying industrial and B2B exporting. Specifically, our research further informs capabilities and RBV theories and makes three distinct contributions to the export marketing literature. First, we extend existing RBV theory by incorporating e-commerce capabilities as a driver of efficiencies and performance in B2B exporting. Through qualitative research, we offer conceptualization and measurement of e-commerce resources and marketing capabilities and develop a model for testing. Second, we analyze these capabilities using RBV theory by testing a dual mediation effects model. Our model predicts that specialized e-commerce marketing capabilities and marketing efficiencies act as mediators between organizational resources and firm performance. The findings provide empirical support that marketing capabilities (e.g., e-commerce marketing capabilities) and marketing efficiencies (e.g., distribution and communication) act as dual mediators in the resources–performance relationship. These findings are compared across models indicating that our dual-mediating model better explains the value of e-commerce than would a direct-effects model. Finally, we measure the overall impact of e-commerce enhanced marketing efficiencies on different forms of export performance (e.g., e-commerce performance and export sales), and demonstrate that such efficiencies are necessary for exporters to enhance e-commerce performance, and in turn strengthen overall export performance. The integration of IT-enabled capabilities into existing export marketing frameworks provides evidence of important factors impacting export performance that are overlooked in existing export literature. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. First, we discuss resource-based view (RBV) perspective and the implications of e-commerce in export marketing. Second, we identify and integrate e-commerce resources and capabilities into existing theory, and present hypotheses and a framework explaining the capabilities–efficiencies– performance relationship. Third, we describe our measures and how they were developed; then test our model and present results from surveys of B2B exporters. Finally, we conclude by discussing both managerial and theoretical implications, and provide a foundation for future research and theory development.