Increasing the Effectiveness of Export Assistance Programs:
The Case of the California Environmental Technology Industry

Murray Silverman
Department of Management
San Francisco State University
Email: msilver@sfsu.edu
Phone: 415 338-7489
Fax: 415 338-0501

Richard M. Castaldi
Department of Management
San Francisco State University
Email: castaldi@sfsu.edu
Phone: 415 338-2829
Fax: 415 338-0501

Sanjit Sengupta
Department of Marketing
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94132.
Email: sengupta@sfsu.edu
Phone: 415 338-1016
Fax: 415 338-0501

Forthcoming, Journal of Global Marketing, 2002

The authors gratefully acknowledge a Business and International Education (BIE) grant and a matching grant from the College of Business, San Francisco State University in support of this study.

This study focuses on the export assistance needs of small and medium sized firms in the California EnviroTech industry. The objectives of this study are to: (1) provide public sector assistance providers research based recommendations to increase the effectiveness of their export assistance programs to the EnviroTech industry; and (2) promote the advantages of a single industry study as the basis for providing public sector export assistance.

Keywords: export assistance; environmental technology; strategic alliance.

Exporting by American firms continues to be an economic priority supported by federal, state and local governments. This is especially true in the environmental technology (EnviroTech) industry which faces a maturing domestic market, thus assistance programs to facilitate exporting by EnviroTech firms are found at all levels of government. However, most studies on the effectiveness of public sector export assistance programs have not yielded very positive findings. In their 1994 article, Cavusgil and Yeoh state:

The US Department of Commerce estimated that some 20,000 small and medium-sized firms could export but are unable to do so. Their lackluster performance has been attributed partially to ineffective assistance and promotion programs on the part of federal and state governments and private agencies (p.77).

This study focuses on the export assistance needs of small and medium-sized firms in the EnviroTech industry. The objectives of this study are to:

1. Provide public sector assistance providers serving the export needs of the EnviroTech industry a research based agenda to increase the effectiveness of their export assistance programs.

2. Identify the extent to which the export assistance needs in the EnviroTech industry are consistent or inconsistent with findings from previous studies regarding assistance needs among broad industrial categories of exporters.

3. Promote the advantages of a single industry study as the basis for providing public sector export assistance.

A number of empirical studies (Moini 1998, Kotabe and Czinkota 1992, Howard and Herremans 1988, Kedia and Chhokar 1986) have explored the efficacy of export assistance programs, implicitly offering guidance to export assistance providers regarding the allocation of their resources and the content of their programs. Key aspects of these studies are presented in Table 1.

A number of the studies found that export assistance needs vary by stage of export development (Moini 1998, Kotabe and Czinkota 1992), leading them to conclude that government assistance programs could be developed and targeted based on whether firms are non-exporters, low level, moderate level or high level exporters. Both Moini (1998) and Kedia and Chokar (1986) found low levels of awareness of export assistance programs, implying that assistance providers are not doing an adequate job of promoting their programs. Usage of export assistance programs was very high for firms that were aware of the services. Kotabe and Czinkota (1992) found that assistance providers were not targeting their resources consistent with the export assistance needs of firms and Howard and Herremans (1988) found that successful exporters did not find government assistance providers to be particularly helpful.

These studies have focused on small and medium-sized manufacturers across many different industries. As a result, the applicability of these findings to a single manufacturing industry is unclear. As pointed out by Moini (1998):

Unfortunately, small and medium-sized manufacturing firms do not constitute a single homogeneous group. Therefore, it is essential that policy-makers fully understand the kinds of differences that occur among them if they are to provide programs that effectively move these firms into successful exporting (p.1).

One way to obviate the problem of designing generic export promotion programs for heterogeneous firms is to target specific industry sectors. The former editor of the Journal of International Marketing noted that "given this diversity of approaches to globalization, it is important for researchers to carry out investigations that target specific industries" (Cavusgil,1997, p.3).

Dess, Ireland and Hitt (1990) present the use of single industry studies as one method to control for potential industry effects and they cite research studies that used this method successfully. The major limitation with single industry studies is that they lack generalizibility. However, since the major objective of this study is to assist public sector providers design more effective export promotion programs within the EnviroTech industry, the lack of generalizibility is not problematic.

In their analysis of public sector export promotion programs, Cavusgil and Yeoh (1994) recognize the importance of focusing on specific target clients to design effective export programs. They state:

…the government also could design export assistance programs tailored to the needs of particular industries…export promotion officials are discovering that by focusing their assistance on selected sectors more tangible results can be expected (p.80).

This conclusion was also supported by Moini's (1994) study of government agency export assistance programs which they summed up by noting "these findings suggest that export assistance programs should be designed and carried out with clear target audiences in mind" (p.76).

The US EnviroTech industry is a relatively new industry, evolving over the past 25 years in response to the emergence of strict environmental regulation in this country. Government at the federal, state, and local levels promulgated a complex web of regulations governing air, water, waste, and toxins. These regulations created opportunities for specialized firms to offer services and equipment that mitigate, control, monitor, or prevent detrimental impacts on the natural environment.

The size of the U.S. EnviroTech industry in 1998 was $182 billion, however growth is maturing (Environmental Business International Inc. 2000). Some domestic growth, however, is expected to continue because new technologies are required continuously to meet increased regulatory standards, or self-imposed standards, reduce compliance costs, or incorporate environmental technologies into integrated production systems.

As a result of the diversity of markets and technologies, the US EnviroTech industry is comprised primarily of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) engaged in a broad range of activities. Barriers to entry are relatively low. It is estimated that there are 45,000 to 60,000 companies (not including water utilities) comprising the U.S. EnviroTech industry.

The global environmental market is huge, totaling $484 billion in 1998 (Environmental Business International Inc. 2000). In absolute terms, the U.S. is the largest exporter with $10 billion in exports. However, in percentage terms, the U.S. only exports 6% of its environmental products and services compared to Japan and Germany which both export on the order of 20% of their environmental products and services.

The US, Western Europe, and Japan have the largest environmental markets while Asia and Latin America have the highest projected growth rates. The types of products or services being demanded in developing countries tend to be those that help to build the environmental infrastructure as compared to the developed countries which are looking to the next generation technologies that will meet increasingly more stringent air, water, and toxins standards.

Strategic alliances such as joint ventures, technology alliances, marketing, and licensing agreements between domestic and host country partners reflect a portfolio of relationships being used by EnviroTech firms in their exporting endeavors. In this industry, the formation of such host country alliances is a necessary condition for U.S. firms to compete in global markets (Sengupta, Castaldi and Silverman 2000). This is due to many factors. First, the customer of EnviroTech products and services is often an overseas government agency that requires local participation. Second, environmental firms' customers are typically buying systems rather than just a single product or service.

Thus, U.S. environmental firms, frequently work in some partnership arrangement with other global and home based firms in bidding on and implementing projects. Moreover, the differences in legal, political and social environments in most foreign countries also necessitates the knowledge and connections of host country partners. Such alliances provide immediate local presence, local know-how and add value to customers as part of the localization desired of globalization.

Under the auspices of a grant from the US Department of Education, the College of Business at San Francisco State University initiated, in the of Fall 1996, an action-research project intended to assist small and medium-sized California environmental technology companies in their export activities.

The study was designed to obtain the following information about the targeted environmental technology firms: (a) their current level of export activity, (b) barriers to exporting, (c) the factors that lead to export success, (d) the need and potential of strategic alliances to enhance export opportunities for small firms, and (e) the perceived assistance needs of both exporting and non-exporting firms.

We used three sources of data to generate the sampling frame for our study. Starting with the California Environmental Technologies and Services Directory, published by California EPA, we first identified all the EnviroTech firms in the San Francisco Bay Area, numbering 451. This was supplemented by a list of 80 EnviroTech firms in the Los Angeles area from the California Business Register database maintained by the World Trade Center Association. Finally, an environmental consultant provided us fax access to approximately 100 EnviroTech companies in the San Diego area. Firms on the San Francisco and Los Angeles lists were contacted by phone in order to update address and contact person information. Our total sampling frame was thus made up of 631 firms.

Based on field interviews with EnviroTech firm executives, government assistance industry experts, and a review of the relevant literature, we designed, developed, and pretested a six page survey questionnaire. This survey was mailed to senior executives in 531 firms in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and faxed to the 100 firms in San Diego. Forty-four surveys were returned as undeliverable, resulting in a reduced sampling frame of 587 firms.

The number of usable returned surveys was 115, giving us an effective response rate of approximately 20%. Data from the surveys was coded and entered into an Excel spreadsheet. Of the 115 sample firms, 75 were exporters and 40 were non-exporters.

Table 2 shows the variety of products and services offered by environmental technology firms. A higher proportion of firms offer services rather than equipment. There is a large concentration of environmental consulting and engineering firms.

Table 3 shows that our sample of California Environmental Technology firms is characterized by small firms (63% under $5 million revenue) who have been in business a number of years (96% over 5 years). About 65% of our sample firms had a history of export activities.

The profile of the 75 exporting firms in our sample (Table 4) shows them to be small and medium firms (56% under $10 million revenue) which have been in business a long time (70% over 10 years). They have a good deal of export experience (68% exported for 4 or more years; 56% exported to 4 or more countries). Asia was the largest market for California environmental technology firms in the sample.

Firms were asked to rate their satisfaction levels in relation to their export experience and the financial returns associated with exporting. Table 5 shows that only 60% and 55% of the firms in our sample were satisfied or extremely satisfied with their export experience and with the financial return from exports, respectively. This finding indicates that there is significant opportunity for assistance providers to add value to the export effectiveness of EnviroTech firms.

In our survey, firms were asked to rate the extent to which they would value ten types of export assistance. For each type of assistance they responded on a five point Likert scale going from 1 (low level of value) to 5 (high level of value). Table 6 shows the results for exporters and non-exporters. In all cases, non-exporters valued assistance more than exporters and significant (probability less than 0.10) results were obtained for nine out of the 10 types of export assistance.

Moini’s 1998 study showed mixed results in relation to exporters' vs. non-exporters' received or expected benefits from 16 program categories. Specifically, in this study, non-exporters mean values exceeded those of exporters in only seven of the sixteen program categories. Other studies showed a similarly mixed result (Kedia and Chhokar 1986, Kotabe and Czinkota 1992). These mixed results may, in part, be due to different levels of cross-industry aggregation in the samples used. Table 6 seems to indicate that in the EnviroTech industry, non-exporters are consistently more enthused than exporters about assistance programs.

A principal component factor analysis was conducted on the 10 types of assistance for exporters and it yielded a two factor solution. One factor included the first four types of assistance listed in Table 6, the second factor the remaining six types of assistance. We labeled the first factor as 'advanced' assistance programs and the second as 'basic' assistance programs. These factors were labeled as such because the advanced assistance factor concerned activities that would be of greater interest to exporting firms (e.g. assistance in finding host country partners).

The factor labeled as 'basic' involved activities that would be greater interest to non-exporters (e.g. training in the basics of exporting). The advanced programs had a mean of 3.25, compared to 2.88 for basic programs (t-value=3.86, p=.000). Since a rating below 3.0 indicates a level of disinterest, exporters are not generally interested in basic programs, but rather in programs relating to finding strategic partners, both domestic and in the host country and obtaining information about market opportunities and trade missions. This is consistent with the extant literature on the subject.

Previous studies have demonstrated that firms in different stages of export development, as measured by export intensity, have different needs and decision considerations (Bilkey and Tesar 1977, Czinkota and Johnson 1981). As a result, the export assistance needs of firms varied across stages (Moini 1998, Kotabe and Czinkota 1992). We divided exporting EnviroTech firms into three stages based on whether their level of export intensity was 'marginal' (less than 1% of revenues from exports or exported in past but not in current year), 'moderate' (1-10% of revenues from exports), and 'heavy' (greater than 10% of revenues from exports) to explore whether assistance needs varied across stages for these exporters (see Table 7).

A number of assistance needs seem to clearly differ across stages which is consistent with the findings of Moini (1998) and Kotabe and Czinkota (1992). Moderate exporters in the EnviroTech industry have the least interest in assistance programs as only two of the 10 programs generated positive values with scores above 3.0. Conversely, marginal and heavy exporters, respectively, rated nine and seven assistance programs in a positive light. Four of the 10 assistance programs had a significant (probability less than 0.10) relationship across the export stages (see Table 7).

There is a consistent pattern across all 10 programs that marginal exporters and heavy exporters value export assistance more than the moderate exporters. Our U-shaped relationship between the value of export assistance and export stage is consistent with Kotabe and Czinkota (1992). The implication of this result is the public sector agencies should focus on the marginal and heavy exporters to increase the effectiveness of their assistance programs.

Thirty five percent of the sample EnviroTech firms have never exported. Many of these firms may be candidates for exporting. Assistance providers could play a role in moving them to export status. Our survey attempted to discover whether there were barriers being experienced by non-exporting firms that could be addressed by export assistance providers.

Non-exporting firms were asked 10 questions about the reasons they did not export. A principal component factor analysis on these 10 items yielded a two factor solution. We labeled these ‘External’ and ‘Internal’ barriers to exporting. Table 8 shows the external barriers to exporting were rated higher in importance than the internal barriers. The external barriers included three informational items ('not knowing the ropes associated with selling in foreign markets', 'unsure as to where are the best export opportunities' and unsure about the types of export assistance that are available). Other studies (Howard and Herremans 1988, Yiprak 1985) also found informational needs to be the primary barriers. The other two external factor items included the perception that risks were too high and not having access to capital. Responding to informational needs and providing access to capital are all addressable by assistance providers. Assistance could also lessen the concerns about risk.

The internal factor related to the issue of whether exporting was appropriate to the firm's size, type, objectives, opportunity horizon and interest. The mean factor score for the internal factor was lower than for the external factor. This indicates that for California EnviroTech firms overcoming informational and capital barriers to exporting is the more critical issue.

One of the advantages of a single industry study is the opportunity it provides to identify that industry's key success factors in exporting. These key success factors can then provide a focus for assistance providers in allocating their resources. In studies that are not single industry based, differences in key success factors across industries would confound an attempt to identify those key success factors.

Firms were asked to rate the relative importance of 13 items in relation to export success. These items were factor analyzed to see if any themes emerged reflecting a consistent viewpoint among firms in the industry regarding the key success factors. Table 9 shows that five factors emerged as themes in the analysis. These factors in priority order are alliances, understanding country markets, in-house staff, financing, and participation in trade missions. Having alliances and working effectively with partners in export countries are considered to be the most critical success factor for exporters. Understanding country markets, or becoming familiar with a specific country, its culture, work habits, and language are also considered to be very important for export success.

The highest rated factor was ‘Alliances’, which includes both having alliances and being able to work effectively with alliance partners. Both exporters and non-exporters rated 'assistance in finding partners in export countries' among the top two valued types of assistance. We also found (see Table 10) a significant correlation between satisfaction with the export experience and its associated financial returns and satisfaction with the alliance experience and its financial returns.

This result demonstrates an empirical relation between effective alliances and export satisfaction in the EnviroTech industry. An alliance with a local host country partner is the lever needed to pry open the opportunities in the overseas market. The important point is that, if the US Envirotech firm has a good working relationship with the alliance partner, this is analogous to having a long lever which takes less effort to operate while providing large export payoffs and greater satisfaction with the export program.

Alliances play a primary role in this industry, suggesting that export assistance providers need to emphasize programs relating to this area. However, previous studies do not emphasize alliance related assistance to the extent that it seems critical in the EnviroTech industry. In Moini's study (1998) of manufacturers, one of the assistance programs rated by respondents was 'A program which locates potential agents or distributors in foreign countries'. Among non-exporters, partially interested exporters and growing exporters, a number of banking services relating to guaranteeing payment or handling financial aspects of export transactions were as important or more important than locating potential agents. For regular exporters, locating potential agents was rated lower in expected benefits than a number of other assistance areas.

In our study, finding financing for export activities was consistently rated lower than other assistance areas (see Tables 6 and 7). These differences between our results and Moini's, we believe is due to the differences in export assistance needs across industries. Kotabe and Czinkota (1992) explored the extent to which export assistance was desired in relation to five factors, and the role of alliances is not really addressed in their typology. Howard and Herremans (1988) establish that 'selecting agents/distributors' and 'maintaining agent/distributor relationships' are the two most important business activities among small successful manufacturing exporters. Kedia and Chhokar (1986) have an item, 'location of potential agents or distributors in foreign countries' that is ranked sixth in relation to benefit expectations among 17 export programs. The mixed results between these studies pertaining to the importance of assistance programs relating to alliances are probably associated with cross-industry differences in what it takes to be a successful exporter and the concomitant export assistance needs.

Trade missions, in which members of the business community, along with government officials and/or trade association representatives visit export market countries, are one of the most widely publicized export assistance programs. A report by the Wisconsin Export Strategy Commission (1995) describes their gubernatorial trade missions as their most successful trade initiatives. Our interviews with assistance providers at the federal, state and local levels in the environmental technology industry similarily indicated that trade missions were thought to be among the most valuable assistance programs.

Previous studies showed mixed results regarding the value of trade missions. Moini (1998) found that trade missions ranked last among sixteen assistance programs in terms of received or expected benefits and in particular, was ranked extremely low by regular exporters who had the most awareness and experience with trade missions. Howard and Herremans (1988) found 'trade fairs' as ranking second in 'helpfulness' among successful exporters from a list of twenty three export assistance activities. Kedia and Chokar (1986) found that interest in trade fairs among both exporters and non-exporters ranked last in relation to a list of seventeen export promotion programs.

Our study indicated that trade missions were not valued very highly by EnviroTech firms. In relation to the factors that were considered to be critical for success (Table 9), a factor we labeled trade missions (trade missions, reverse trade missions and technical demonstrations) had the lowest mean factor score, indicating disagreement with the idea that trade missions were critical to export success. In relation to the value placed on trade missions as a form of assistance (Table 6), non-exporters rated it lowest among ten types of assistance, and exporters rated it next to lowest. In relation to the value placed on trade missions by stage of export development (Table 7), marginal and moderate exporters rated it lowest and heavy exporters rated it eighth on a list of ten types of assistance. Thus, our study is consistent with most of the previous studies, indicating that exporting firms do not expect trade missions to provide significant value.

The results of this study have implications first, for public sector export assistance providers to the EnviroTech industry and second, for researchers exploring export assistance needs.

This study provides focus and direction to the efforts of public sector export assistance agencies. Firms without export experience have a wide range of information needs in order to overcome external barriers. External barriers to exports have been discovered by researchers in other industries as well (Bauerschmidt, Sullivan and Gillespie 1985). Non-exporting firms want information about the "ropes and procedures" associated with selling in foreign markets, they are unsure as to where to find the best export market opportunities, and they want to know more about the types of export assistance that are available. For these firms, obtaining relevant information can involve many blind alleys, and it can be time consuming and costly. Many of these firms may not realize that there is a well equipped, broad based infrastructure of public sector service organizations that can assist them in accessing the information they need. These barriers can be directly addressed through informational sessions and programs.

Service providers to the environmental technology industry can play a significant role here in moving these firms to export readiness and to becoming exporters. Also, non-exporters in our study were interested in learning about the role of alliances and the assistance that might be available in establishing such alliances. This implies that assistance providers should go beyond the topic of export basics and procedures and introduce EnviroTech industry topics of a more advanced nature to non-exporters.

Clearly, marginal exporters and heavy exporters value export assistance much more than moderate exporters and should constitute the target audience for assistance programs. For experienced exporters our concern was that only 55% to 60% of the exporting firms felt either satisfied or extremely satisfied about their export experience and associated financial returns. Both marginal and heavy exporting firms need to recognize from the outset that effective host country partner alliances are critical to their success and ultimate satisfaction with their export endeavors.

The importance of strategic alliances for exports has been documented by others (Lorinc 1990). A number of visits over a period of time will probably have to be made to a target country market to understand local markets, customs and business practices, and especially to meet prospective partners. Partner selection and the management of the alliance relationship over time will play a major role in achieving success. In new markets, exporting firms should seek assistance from public sector service providers to assist them in networking and establishing relationships with potential partners. Assessment of potential partners should include an exploration of mutual expectations regarding the working relationship. Effort and skill will have to be put into building trust in these relationships.

Service providers can play an important value adding role relating to host country alliances. They can facilitate increased understanding of the important role of these alliances, what it takes to make them work effectively, and they can assist firms in the process of finding appropriate partners. Service providers can also develop and maintain current databases of potential partners in export markets and provide training to export-ready firms to better select partners and manage such alliances.

In relation to research on export assistance, the Envirotech industry demonstrated a similarity to other industries in that export needs varied across stages of export development. However, the nature and relative priority of specific export assistance needs may vary significantly across industries. For example, while this study demonstrated the high value EnviroTech firms, exporters and non-exporters, accorded to export assistance relating to finding and maintaining effective alliance relationships with host country partners, other studies in the existing literature accorded typically lower priority to this area (Moini 1998, Kedia and Chhokar 1986). The differences in priority could be because the role of alliances in the industries surveyed in these other studies is of a different nature than in EnviroTech. Also, none of the previous studies focused on a single industry, so the relative importance they accorded to alliances was averaged out over a number of industries.

It should not be surprising that export assistance needs would vary across industries. Cavusgil (1997) points out that, "globalization of industries exhibit differences in terms of initial motives for going international, modes of foreign market entry, and special challenges faced by companies" (page 3). Thus, studies of specific industries or of highly interrelated industries should be undertaken if the goal is to provide effective guidance to export assistance providers.

Previous studies reached the conclusion that export assistance programs should be tailored to the stage of export development (Moini 1998, Kotabe and Czinkota 1992). This study supports that finding and suggests that export assistance programs may also have to be tailored to the specific needs and key success factors in particular industries. Further research needs to be undertaken to continue to validate the value and importance of single industry studies.

Bauerschmidt, Alan, Daniel Sullivan, and Kate Gillespie (1985), "Common Factors Underlying Barriers to Export: Studies in the U.S. Paper Industry," Journal of International Business Strategies, Fall, 111-122.

Bilkey, Warren, J., and George Tesar (1977).  "The Export Behavior of Smaller Sized Wisconsin Firms," Journal of Internatinal Business Studies (Spring/Summer), 93-98.

Cavusgil, S. Tamer (1984), "Differences Among Exporting Firms Based on their Degree of Internationalization", Journal of Business Research 12, 195-208.

Cavusgil, S. Tamer and Yeoh, Poh-Lin, (1994) "Public Sector Promotion of U.S. Export Activity: A Review and Directions for the Future", Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Spring, 76-84.

Cavusgil, S. Tamer (1997), "From the Editor in Chief - Globalization of Industries", Journal of International Marketing, 5 (1), 3-4.

Czinkota, Michael R. and Wesley J. Johnston (1983), "Exporting: Does Sales Volume Make a Difference?", Journal of International Business Studies, (Spring/Summer), 147-153.

Dess, Gregory G., Duane Ireland and Michael A. Hitt, 1990, "Industry Effects and Strategic Management Research", Journal of Management 16 (1), 7-27.

Environmental Business International Inc., 2000, "Report 2000: The U.S. Environmental Industry & Global Markets", San Diego: Environmental Business International Inc.

Howard, D. G. and Irene M. Herremans, 1988, "Sources of Assistance for Small Business Exporters", Journal of Small Business Management July, 48-54.

Kedia, B. L. and Jagdeep S. Chhokar, 1986, ‘An Empirical Investigation of Export Promotion Programs’, Columbia Journal of World Business 21(4), 13-20.

Kotabe, M. and Michael R. Czinkota, 1992, "State Government Promotion of Manufacturing Exports: A Gap Analysis", Journal of International Business Studies Fourth Quarter, 637-657.

Lorinc, John (1990), "Selling to the world strategically: Strategic alliances can magnify your export clout-and you don't even have to leave home," Canadian Business, 63 (11), 126.

Moini, A. H., 1998, "Small Firms Exporting: How Effective Are Government Export Assistance Programs?", Journal of Small Business Management, (January), 1-15.

Sengupta, Sanjit, Richard M. Castaldi and Murray Silverman (2000), "A Dependence-Trust Model of Export Alliance Performance in Small and Medium Enterprises," Journal of Transnational Management, 5 (4).

Sharkey, T. W., Lim, J.S. and Kim, K. I., (1989) "Export Development and Perceived Export Barriers: An Empirical Analysis of Small Firms", Management International Review, 29, 33-40.

Yaprak, Attila, (1985) "An Empirical Study of the Differences Between Small Exporting and Non-exporting US Firms", International Marketing Review, Summer, 72-83.

¹Column total exceeds 100% because some firms classify themselves in more than one sector. Sample size=115 firms.

¹ F value for difference of means test.

¹Mean factor score is computed from a 5 point Likert scale going from 1=Strongly disagree to 5=Strongly agree.  Sample size=40 non-exporting firms.

¹Mean factor score is computed from a 5 point Likert scale going from 1=Strongly disagree to 5=Strongly agree. Sample size=75 exporting firms.