Abstract
Following the resource-based view, this research empirically explores the role of formal and informal management control in mobilizing export resources to develop export capabilities, influencing the export performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in an interorganizational relationship context. Empirical data were collected using a survey administrated online to finance managers in Spanish SMEs which use foreign intermediaries to access export markets. In this setting, evidence mainly suggests, first, that management control systems (MCSs) play a relevant mediating role between the effect of, on the one hand, resources on capabilities, and, on the other hand, resources and capabilities on performance. Second, that MCSs and capabilities play a interrelated double mediating effect between the impact of resources on performance; more specifically, a significant double indirect effect is found (1) between financial resources, behavior control, customer relationship building capability and performance, and (2) between physical resources, behavior control, customer relationship building capability and performance.
Highlights
Resource-based view (RBV) literature has largely considered firms’ export performance to be influenced by a proper combination of their own resources and capabilities [1,2]
To show which are the key resources and capabilities that impact on both management control systems (MCSs) and export performance, and which capabilities mediate the effect of resources on performance, we suggest as our main contributions to RBV, management control and marketing literatures, first, that MCSs play a relevant mediating role between the effect of, on the one hand, resources on capabilities, and, on the other hand, resources and capabilities on performance; and second, we suggest that MCSs and capabilities play a interrelated double mediating effect between the impact of resources on performance
Partial Least Squares (PLS) was selected due to several advantages over covariance-based SEM techniques that suit this research [130]: (i) PLS allows testing theories in an early stage of development, where models are more exploratory than confirmatory in nature [131]; (ii) PLS is suitable for analyzing small samples but a large number of latent construct and manifest variables [132]; (iii) PLS is an adequate technique to test models that include both formative and reflective constructs [133]; (iv) PLS does not require data from a multivariate normal distribution [134]
Summary
Resource-based view (RBV) literature has largely considered firms’ export performance to be influenced by a proper combination of their own resources and capabilities [1,2]. Regarding the most updated view of the RBV, Kozlenkova et al [44] argue that sustainable competitive advantage is only achievable when resources are simultaneously valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable, and exploitable by the company’s organization These researchers argue for the necessity in marketing literature to wide RBV, on the one hand, including inter-firm relationships to explain the effect of exchange-level resources on the performance of marketing exchange, and, on the other hand, carrying out research to understand and refine the knowledge about the skills, processes, and policies that lead to resource exploitation at the exchange level of analysis.
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