Drivers of Success for Export Market Expansion: A View of Organizational Learning and an Empirical Assessment

It seems to be a common sense that a key driver of success for an exporter’s expansion into a country market is its knowledge about how to compete in the market. Such knowledge is often accumulated through direct learning in markets. Nonetheless, many exporters with little prior direct learning in export markets have attained substantial performance in the markets. Depending critically on both the knowledge-based view and the organizational learning theory, the author develops a model in order to explain and predict the effects of organizational learning on export market expansion success. In the model, two types of organizational learning are considered on export market expansion success. One is direct learning of culture and economy in other countries. The other is indirect learning from other firms’ experiences. Using a uniquely complied archival dataset regarding Korean firms’ export market expansions, the current study empirically tests the model. It is posited that direct learning with regard to culture and economy positively moderates the relationship between those drivers and success in export market expansion. Moreover, the importance of indirect learning is underscored in explaining export market expansion. Finally, this paper is concluded with a discussion of significant implications for theory and practice by highlighting the effects of both direct learning and indirect learning from competitors and channel memberships and with some limitations of the present study and the directions for future research.