Architectural Capabilities and Market Orientations: The Case of Exporting Ventures
(A2019-8639)

AUTHORS

Vasilis Theoharakis, University of Sheffield; Yannis Angelis, Elval Colour

KEYWORDS

Capabilities; Proactive ; Exports

ABSTRACT

The importance of architectural capabilities in exporting ventures has been previously demonstrated but not necessarily concurrently for both the exporter and their foreign distributor. Further, while the contribution of responsive market orientation has been well established in the development of export venture capabilities, the contribution of proactive market orientation has been somewhat elusive. In this paper, we examine the impact of these orientations on the architectural capabilities for both the exporter and its foreign distributor. Our results indicate the moderating role of the exporter’s proactive market orientation in enhancing both the exporter’s and distributor’s architectural capabilities. Further, we find that the distributor’s architectural capabilities fully mediate the impact of the exporter’s architectural capabilities on financial performance. We thus demonstrate the crucial role of the exporter’s proactive market orientation in the development of architectural capabilities while we find that their distributor’s architectural capabilities have the final say in achieving higher levels of performance.