Abstract
Regional clusters and innovations in product and processes are found in the literature as important determinants of firms' export performance. However, this relationship is still controversial and very highly constrained by industry, and by regions. Based on a more integrative perspective, the aim of the present article is to investigate the role of agglomeration economies of a regional cluster on the export performance of firms. Furthermore, we will test the mediating effect of innovation and the extent by which the technological intensity of the industry can perform a moderating effect between the constructs. Based on a sample of 100 export companies operating in the manufacturing industries, we use structural equation modeling to estimate the determinants of export performance. The results reveal that the agglomeration economies of a regional cluster have been found determinant factors of the export performance, as well as a significant source to generate innovations by firms. However, we found no evidence between the innovations in products and processes and export performance. The results have also shown that there are no differences among technological intensity of the industries, suggesting that the firms will access agglomeration resources of regional cluster in a complementary way to their internal resources.
Highlights
Over the past decades several scholars have investigated the determinants of export performance
Aiming to contribute to the field of international business from the perspective of the determinants of the export performance, this study is guided by the following research question: What is the influence of the agglomeration economies of a regional cluster on firms export performance? And in which extent this effect can be mediated by innovation and moderated by the technological intensity of industry?
The results of the structural modeling have demonstrated that the regional clusters resources are sources of new information, knowledge and other external resources of firm, and the access to these resources enables firms to become more competitive in the international scenario
Summary
Over the past decades several scholars have investigated the determinants of export performance. Different studies have attempted to analyze the relationships between the location advantages of regional clusters and export performance of firms (Diez-Vial & Fernández-Olmos, 2014; Fernhaber, Gilbert, & McDougall, 2008), cluster and innovation (Lai, Hsu, Lin, Chen, & Lin, 2014; Tristão, Oprime, Jugend, & Silva, 2013), or innovation and export performance (Alegre, Pla-Barber, Chiva, & Villar, 2012; Becker & Egger, 2013; Tavassoli, 2013) It seems that there are still relative lacks of studies seeking for the establishment of the connections between the three dimensions, and to explore in depth the mediating effects of technological intensity of the industry, in the case of emerging economies. We consider that the geographic sources of competitive advantages, like localized human capital, presence of key suppliers, tastes of local consumers, demand patterns of industrial customers, the nature and levels of local competition and cooperation, and local institutions may operate differently from country to country, or between developed and developing countries
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