The Role of Political Intelligence in Firms’ Export Decisions During the Euro Crisis
基于2012年欧元危机期间440家英法瑞中小企业的数据，研究发现依赖欧元区出口且受危机影响大的企业会频繁监测政治信息，进而形成正式利用政治情报的惯例，并寻求欧元区外的新出口机会。
Inspired by the literatures on internationalization and absorptive capacity, we develop a model exploring how small firms—during crises—acquire and apply political information to export decisions. We test our model using data collected during the 2012 Eurozone crisis from a sample of 440 British, French, and Swedish SMEs. Findings indicate that firms dependent on the Eurozone for exports and heavily impacted by the crisis engaged in frequent political monitoring. In turn, frequent monitoring leads to the development of formal routines for exploiting political information. Firms with the most formal routines sought new export opportunities beyond the Eurozone. In contrast to previous research into small-firm internationalization, our study stresses the significance of “shortcut” searching activities, non-market information, and firms’ decisions to reduce prior investments in export markets.