Identifying the effective factors on entrepreneurial export from the perspective of dynamic capabilities: The case of food industry

As a developing country, Iran has taken non-oil exports into consideration as an important strategy in its economic plans in order to be released from single-product economy and develop non-oil exports. However, in practice, the achievements associated with non-oil exports are mainly related to petroleum commodities and derivatives. Hence, the country needs to strengthen export firms and their international competitive capabilities, in particular, in the fields which have the required potential for international trade and competitions. One of the industries that can be of great value in a situation that the country is seeking non-oil exports is food industry (Kaffash et al. 2012). However, despite high potentials of food industries in Iran, the balance of trade is negative for this area and it should gradually become reasonable and positive (Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Mines, 2016).Therefore, this study has been focused on the food industry and export power. On the other hand, after examining the literature the gap in international marketing and small and medium enterprises, one can say that the criticism of the views in these areas is that they seek to identify and utilize existing resources and capabilities of the organization, and they have static view (Teece, 2009). Thus, in this study, factors affecting the ability of the firms to export entrepreneurship from a dynamic perspective are examined. As it has been mentioned earlier, in previous studies, the models of entrepreneurial exports presented from static perspectives like resource-based view (Navarro-Garcia et al., 2016, Tayloe, 2013). In addition, it should be noted that in each industry, different types of dynamic capabilities can be identified, which are different. So, it can be said that dynamic capabilities are vaguely identified. Therefore, another research gap is the ambiguity of the concept of dynamic capabilities in the food industry that this study try to identify. On the other hand, one of the concerns of business professionals is the documentation and modeling of the practices of entrepreneurs in various functional areas, including the field of marketing and internationalization. But entrepreneurial exports, which are part of international entrepreneurship, have not been taken into consideration (Hessels & Vanstel, 2011). Indeed, it can be said that there is a research gap in the field of international entrepreneurship (Mainela et al., 2014). Also, the models presented in the international entrepreneurship are about large and global companies. They are less relevant to small and medium enterprises, especially in developing countries (Taylor, 2013). Therefore, in view of the existing gaps in the literature on the issue of non-oil exports in the country, this study tries to identify the factors affecting the development of entrepreneurial exports of Iranian food industry enterprises in terms of dynamic capabilities.

Methods

 In the first stage, a theoretical discussion on the interviews and content analysis and sampling have been provided. In the design phase of the model, in addition to reviewing the literature, interviews with experts in the food industry were considered. These experts in the food industry include people from different levels of the organization in the leading manufacturing and exporting food companies in Iran. Sampling in this research is theoretical in the first stage. In this type of sampling, samples are not necessarily composed of individuals, and the specialized and theoretical literature related to a domain can also be considered as a unit of data and analysis, and the goal is to achieve theoretical saturation (Adolph et al.., 2012). In the first stage, a series of deep interviews was conducted with 20 academic experts and food industry experts to reach the theoretical saturation. Interviews were analyzed with MaxQDA 10 software and a model has been achieved. The statistical population in the second phase of study is small and medium-sized enterprises in the food industry, which these companies operate as exporters in the food industry, with more than three years of export experience. In total, 24 companies participated in the research. Sampling method at this stage is a purposive sampling and the tool used in this stage is a questionnaire. Of the total questionnaires sent for 210 people, 193 questionnaires were answered and analised. For testing the model, this study used a structural equation model and Smart Pls software.   Findings This study seeks to identify the factors affecting entrepreneurial exports using the dynamic capabilities perspective, at the level of small and medium enterprises that are known as a successful entrepreneur and exporter in the food industry. Therefore, in this study, based on the obtained model, the analysis of the content of interviews and the study of literature 5 dimensions were considered for the identifying and seizing the opportunities capability. But after test of the model, only four dimensions including management competencies, networking capability, entrepreneurial orientation and external market orientation, respectively, were identified as constituent dimensions. Furthermore, the results showed that four dimensions of the identifying and seizing opportunities capabilities are effective on the configuration capability and the macro environment has a negative impact on the configuration capability. Also, the micro-environment has a moderating effect in the relationship between the two variables. On the other hand, the configuration capability affects the entrepreneurial export.

In this study, three dimensions of strategic, analysis and global commitment as constituted dimensions of managerial competencies for identifying and seizing opportunities in international markets for small and medium enterprises were recognized. Networking capability, entrepreneurial orientation and external market orientation (retail environment audit and market research) are other dimensions of identifying and seizing opportunity capabilities. Moreover, the reconfiguration capability on entrepreneurial exports has a significant impact. Researches have also shown that the competitive responsive capability is effective on export performance of a firm (Helfalt et al., 2007). Based on testing the model, the micro-environment features, including market uncertainty and competition level, have positive impact on the relationship between identifying and seizing opportunity capability and reconfiguration capability. This means that companies that operate in environments with high levels of uncertainty can identify opportunities more quickly and face better environmental threats. In this study, is also has been found that the macro environment has a negative impact on the reconfiguration capability. But this impact is less than the positive impact of identifying and seizing opportunities on reconfiguration capability. Thus, by enhancing the capability of identifying and seizing opportunities with the following four sub-dimensions as mentioned above, the negative impact of the macro environment on configuration capability  to face market threats can be reduced.