Export Decision-Making: Combining Planning and Improvisation to Enhance Performance

Abstract

The increasing interdependence of economies and the recent economic crisis have considerably strengthened the importance of exporting. Exporting is recognised as promoting the survivability of companies as they are better able to diversify risks and generate multiple income streams. Against this background export marketing decision-making has been identified as one of the main determinants of firms’ success. However, little is known about how export marketing decisions are made. The application of decision theory helps to disentangle two key decision-making approaches managers rely on, namely planning and improvisation. While planning has received extensive research attention in the past, the topic of improvisational decision-making is mostly overlooked in marketing, especially export marketing. As a result, a holistic view of export decision-making is currently lacking from the field. This is one of the first studies examining the impact of both planning and improvisation simultaneously on a firm’s export performance. While planning is considered to be a unidimensional construct, improvisation is comprised of three facets: spontaneity, creativity and action-orientation. This research was conducted in two phases, including a qualitative exploratory study (12 in-depth interviews) and an online quantitative survey (200 respondents) among export managers in the UK. A conceptual model was tested through the use of structural equation modelling. The results indicate that export customer performance is negatively affected by planning and positively influenced by action-orientation, whilst export financial performance is found to benefit from planning and creativity. All decision-making approaches (planning, spontaneity, creativity and action-orientation) are positively related to responsiveness to environmental changes. Using moderator analysis, important insights were uncovered into combining decision-making approaches. The export function is found to benefit from a combination of planning and action-orientation, whereas spontaneity and creativity, while having separate positive effects, are not well combined with planning, producing negative moderation effects.