An Attempted Integration of the Literature on the Export Behavior of Firms

Forty-three studies on the export behavior of firms involving eleven countries were assembled. (The author believes that they constitute nearly all of the available literature on the subject.) An attempt was made to integrate them into a more-or-less meaningful whole that both yields interesting implications and provides a useful background guide for future research on the subject. * The export behavior of firms relates to the supply side of international trade. A substantial body of literature has developed on the subject since the early 1960s, but it is so widely scattered and difficult to obtain that few analysts appear to be aware of more than a portion of what has been written. No common model has been developed for the various empirical findings on the export behavior of firms. This article reviews the essential features of that literature and integrates them by topic covered. Most empirical studies have identified multiple considerations relating to the export behavior of firms. Such studies are referred to under each of the topics to which they apply. Analysts concerned with the initiation of the export process have tended to focus on the effects of change-agents, both external and internal. External change-agents include chambers of commerce, industrial associations, banks, government agencies, and other firms [Pinney, 1970]. The latter appear to be overwhelmingly the most important [Tesar, 1975]; they include corporations that buy-out smaller firms and then pressure them to export, foreign firms interested in buying machinery for their own use or components for their manufacturing process, foreign importers, and export agents. Seven studies concerned with the source of initiative for exporting obtained information from exporters about whether their firm's initial export order was received unsolicited. Affirmative responses were obtained from the following percents of firms: 73% in a British Columbia study [Perkett, 1963]; 44% in a UK study [Simmonds and Smith, 1968]; and 40%, 60%, 69%, 82%, and 83% respectively in five U.S. studies [Snavely, et al., 1964; Tesar, 1975; Sinai, 1970; Simpson and Kujawa, 1974; Pavord and Bogart, 1975]. The five U.S. studies yield a simple arithmetic average of 67%. The important internal change-agent tends to be a member of the firm's top management who is interested in and enthusiastic about exporting [Pinney, 1970]. The determinants of whether or not management takes the initiative in exporting appear to be the following. First, is management's diffuse impression of the attractiveness of exporting as an abstract ideal, independently of whatever particular contribution exporting might make to its own firm [Simpson, 1973]. (The latter cannot be known by management until he or she explores the feasibility of exporting or gains export experience.) Second, is INTRODUCTION SUMMARY OF THE LITERATURE