Effectiveness of Export Support Programs: Impact on the Relational Capital and International Performance of Early Internationalizing Small Businesses
评估公共出口支持计划对早期国际化小企业的影响，发现财务支持仅增加国外市场数量而非经济绩效，信息支持通过关系资本起作用，运营支持无效。
This article evaluates the impact of public export support programs on the internationalization of early internationalizing small businesses. We build and test a conceptual model of the link between export support services and early internationalizing firms’ relational capital and international performance in terms of both economic international performance and the number of foreign markets in which they are present. The results show that financial support is effective in enhancing firm performance only in terms of the number of foreign markets but not in terms of economic performance, that informational support is effective through its influence on relational capital, and that operational support is not. Our findings contrast with those of previous studies on firms that internationalize through stages and suggest that new export support services adapted to early internationalizing firms are needed.