The effects of digital resources on firms’ export-financial performance under immigrant ownership

This study explains why digital resources generate higher export returns for some small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) but not others. Drawing on the liability-of-outsidership framework, we argue that digital resources create virtual embeddedness, while immigrant ownership enhances their effectiveness by enabling real network embeddedness. Using a representative sample of 7723 Canadian SMEs from Statistics Canada, we employ instrumental-variable models to analyze their export intensity and financial performance. Digital resources increase export intensity, but this effect is substantially stronger for immigrant-owned firms. Export intensity improves financial performance only when digital resources and immigrant ownership are combined. For nonimmigrant-owned firms, exporting yields weaker or even negative financial returns. These findings demonstrate that digital resources alone provide only a partial solution to the liability of outsidership and that owner-level social networks critically condition their performance effects.