Implementing market-oriented behaviours and coopetition activities in export markets

Purpose Market-oriented behaviours (MOBs) have been widely studied in domestic and international settings. However, it is unclear how smaller-sized exporters can manage MOBs to enhance their sales performance. That is, under-resourced firms might be constrained by their size, meaning that they require other forms of assistance from key stakeholder groups (e.g. competitors) to boost their export sales performance when implementing export MOBs. Accordingly, guided by the wider aspects of resource-based theory, the purpose of this study is to delve deeper into the relationship between export MOBs and export sales performance under different degrees of export coopetition (collaboration with competitors). Design/methodology/approach The research team collected and analysed survey responses from 118 smaller-sized exporters within the New Zealand wine industry. Such statistical data passed all major robustness checks (i.e. for reliability, different forms of validity and common method variance). In addition to the core model-testing stage, several post-hoc tests were conducted to further examine the statistical findings. Findings As expected, export MOBs had a positive and significant relationship with export sales performance. Yet, a surprising result was that export coopetition activities negatively and significantly moderated this link (a two-way interaction effect). The subsequent post-hoc tests revealed a variety of interesting nuances pertaining to how export MOBs and export coopetition activities can positively and negatively influence export sales performance. Originality/value This study offers unique insights regarding the circumstances where export coopetition activities assist (and do not assist) under-resourced businesses to amplify the performance-enhancing benefits of export MOBs. New evidence demonstrates that while export MOBs can help smaller-sized exporters to thrive within their markets, coopetition (formally and/or informally) can negatively impact export sales performance when implemented in tandem with MOBs. Hence, this investigation identifies some of the dark sides of international forms of coopetition.