Research seminar "Exporters' success and failure in the VUCA world" (Tiia Vissak)

Research Seminar

19.04.2023
Zoom
at 11.00-12.00

TIIA VISSAK (University of Tartu)

Firms’ export performance has received considerable attention, but agreement regarding which measures to use and how to achieve “success” is missing. This presentation aims to contribute to the internationalization literature by discussing the problems of current export performance measures taking the VUCA conditions (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous business environment) and firms’ serial nonlinear internationalization (multiple foreign market exits and re-entries) into account. It also gives an overview of understandings of “success“ and “failure“, and, thereafter, firms’ “successful” and “failed” internationalization processes, causes and outcomes of “successful” and “failed” exports. It explains that due to using a wide range of “success” and “failure” criteria and focusing on different types of “successful” and “failed” internationalizers (from slow internationalizers to born globals), authors have identified a wide variety of internal and external causes of firms’ export “success” and “failure”. Moreover, export-related and other outcomes of “successful” and “failed” internationalization also vary considerably. Due to the complexity of the “success” and “failure” phenomena, it is impossible to identify a “typical” type of “successful” or “failed” internationalization or offer “optimal” failure avoidance advice.