Nicholas C. Williamson, Nir Kshetri, Tim Heijwegen, Andreea Fortuna Schiopu
Executive Summary
Historically, people who have been involved in either the identification of export markets or, in general, the allocation of resources across export markets have had little systematic, nonanecdotal guidance grounded in what exporters have actually done in the real world. Furthermore, any such advice has typically been of a “one-size-fits-all” type, such that the outcomes of either of these processes flow from the rote combination of values of one or more variables that, by assumption only, are deemed to be important for all types of products. Williamson and colleagues provide a solution to these problems with a methodology that uses a shift-share-based framework for identifying export markets.
The methodology is illustrated with an example that involves the export of two types of products (yarn-spinning equipment and weaving equipment) by exporters from two countries (Germany and Japan). The empirical results of the study demonstrate how a given country’s exporters of a specific product combine values of three key explanatory variables—import market potential, import market competitiveness, and barriers to imports—when they make their export market identification decisions. The data are taken from the United Nations historical export and import trade-flow files. Framed in a predictive validation context, the procedure involves relating a surrogate variable for the outcomes of export market identification decisions (or export market resource allocation decisions) of a given country’s exporters of a specific product to the three explanatory variables, whose values are calculated by means of trade-flow data from an immediately preceding time period.
The main managerial utility of Williamson and colleagues’ article is in the domain of global competitive strategy. In particular, as events unfold in the relevant dimensions of the product-specific global export marketing environment (e.g., events resulting in changes in the potential and the competitiveness of import product-markets), export managers who use the methodology described in this article can predict the outcomes of export market identification or export market resource allocation decisions of competitors in specific countries. This would enable export managers to identify new export markets or concentrate resources in pivotal export markets in a manner that both takes into account the predicted decisions of competitors in specific countries and conforms to the chosen competitive strategy of the export manager’s firm.
Biography
Nicholas C. Williamson received a BA in Mathematics (1971), an MBA (1975), and a PhD in Marketing (1980) from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Professor Williamson’s main area of marketing expertise and interest is in the domain of export market identification. He has had significant consulting experience in the furniture-manufacturing industry (sales force size and compensation issues), the fast-food industry (retail site selection), and the corporate marketing of a national brand of jeans (consumer behavior analysis). In addition to Journal of International Marketing, he has published recently in Competitiveness Review, Journal of Teaching in International Business, Journal of Textile and Apparel Technology Management, Multinational Business Review, and [Journal of] Global Competitiveness. Professor Williamson is conducting empirical research on the influence that (1) the nature of the product and (2) the export competitiveness of the exporter have on the outcomes of the export market identification process.
Nir Kshetri is an assistant professor in the Bryan School of Business and Economics at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Nir holds a PhD in Business Administration from University of Rhode Island, an MBA from Banaras Hindu University (India), and an MSc (Mathematics) and an MA (Economics) from Tribhuvan University (Nepal). His research focuses on export marketing and marketing of high-technology products. Currently, Nir is exploring how crimes on the Internet influence firms’ marketing activities. Nir has recently published in Journal of International Management, IEEE Software, Foreign Policy, Journal of Asia Pacific Business, and First Monday.
Tim Heijwegen is a research assistant in the Bryan School of Business and Economics at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He received his BS in Logistics and Business Administration from the University of Amsterdam and his MBA from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.
Andreea Fortuna Schiopu is a research assistant in the Bryan School of Business and Economics at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She received her licentiate degree diploma (the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree) in Economics, her master’s degree in International Tourism, and is a doctoral candidate in Economy of Commerce and Services at the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, Romania. She has teaching experience within the Tourism–Services Department at the Academy of Economic Studies. She is a coauthor of Remy: Management Simulation Game and Economy of Services: Problems and Case Studies, and she has contributed to Quality and Sustainable Development Within the EU Integration and Marketing Management: Studies, Research, Consulting.
Journal of International Marketing, Vol. 14, No. 1, March 2006
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