Key success factors of international market development

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop an evaluation model to determine the relative weights of key factors influencing international market development (IMD) success through analysis network process (ANP) during group decision-making. An empirical case of the Taiwan bulk shipping industry is used to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed approach. Design/methodology/approach The literature review is performed to generate 20 key success factors (KSFs) along with four factor categories in IMD (such as organizational capability, environmental scanning, international strategy and internationalization behavior). Then, ANP is applied to develop an evaluation model that prioritizes the relative importance linking the above four factor categories with 20 evaluated KSFs. Findings With respect to the final weights for factor categories, “international strategy” and “environmental scanning” are the two most important criteria, followed by “organizational capability” and “internationalization behavior”....