Export Problems and Stimuli Associated with Performance in the Arab Market Context: Insights from the Japanese Managerial Perceptions

The firm behavior and its performance in Export markets have received considerable research attention over the past two decades. Most of this research has concentrated upon a critical early stage in the process of internationalization emphasizing the evolution of the firm in its course to become international. However, less empirical attention has been paid to export behavior of firms that are already engaged in export activities and thereby possessing foreign market knowledge and facilities. The study focuses on factors that partially or considerably affect the performance of the firm in a distant export market. It treats the export marketing activities of the Japanese consumer electronics firms in the Arab market through an investigation of the “situation specific” factors affecting their performance. In this framework, the primary objective of this article is twofold: To contribute to the advancement of knowledge on the export performance of the firm in the barely investigated context of developing countries in the Arab market through determining factors specific to this region and that could affect the strategy-performance relationship; and to attempt to extend findings generated in the context of developed countries to another context where the export performance of foreign companies could be affected by situation-specific factors of different nature, scope and intensity.