When do firms learn? Learning before versus after exporting
研究企业从出口中学习的时机，发现母国经济发展水平决定了学习发生在出口前还是出口后，并用世界银行企业调查数据验证了假设。
Abstract Organizational learning begins with experience. However, it remains an open question whether firms learn from a particular type of experience: exporting. This study aims to speak into this debate by examining when learning by exporting occurs. Our core thesis is that the timing of learning by exporting depends on a firm’s home market economic development. Drawing on classic theories of organizational learning, we posit that firms in more developed home markets will enjoy greater opportunities for learning before exporting whereas firms in less developed home markets will enjoy greater opportunities for learning after exporting. The former will be observed as a divergence in productivity among firms from different home markets, whereas the latter will be observed as convergence over time. The proposed hypotheses were tested and supported using longitudinal data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey. A range of theoretical and practical contributions are discussed.