The nonlinear relationship between digital affordances and firm-level export performance: The moderating role of organizational ambidexterity

Abstract

A diminished trade cost has been ascribed to the advancement of digital transformation, particularly digital technologies and platforms. Nevertheless, whether this decline in trade costs manifests in the extensive or intensive margin of trade remains an unresolved query. This study conducts a comprehensive analysis of the influence of digital affordances on firm-level export performance. Specifically, we posit that digital affordances will manifest a convex influence on firms' export decisions and intensive margin of export. Furthermore, we propose that the relationship between digital affordances and firm-level export decisions will be contingent upon the degree of firms' organizational ambidexterity. To empirically test our hypotheses, we leverage a dataset comprising 13,251 firm-level observations gathered by the World Bank Enterprise Surveys (WBES) unit across 19 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Our study substantiates a U-shaped nexus between digital affordances and firm-level export performance. Importantly, our analysis supports that this U-shaped nexus is accentuated when firms present a high level of organizational ambidexterity.