Antecedents to the export market orientation of Hungarian higher education institutions, and their export performance consequences

Abstract

Research into the international competitiveness of the higher education sector has shown that the approaches which management literature has introduced into the business sphere during the last half-century are being more and more frequently applied by successful universities as well. The authors extend the theory of export market orientation to the higher education sector, and explore the association between export coordination, export experience, export market orientation, export performance and the competitive environment in the context of the Hungarian higher education sector. The aforementioned relations are analysed on two subsamples (universities with a top performance vs. higher education institutions with a lower performance in regard to internationalization and scientific research). Based on the results, the authors conclude that export experience is a significant predictor of export performance in both groups of institutions, while export coordination can only explain changes in export market orientation for the group comprising the universities that lag behind in terms of internationalization. They observe, moreover, that the influence of export market orientation on export performance is stronger in the case of top-performing Hungarian universities, and that for the same group, the intensity of competition in international markets improves international orientation.