R-AND-D-RELATED CAPABILITIES AS DETERMINANTS OF EXPORT PERFORMANCE

Empirical evidence from a sample of independent and privately held spe cialized suppliers all of which are engaged in formal R&D activities s hows that specific R&D-related capabilities are determinants of differ ent types of export performance. The major contribution of this paper is to take into account traditional measures of R&D activities as well as a broad range of R&D-related capabilities to further our understan ding of the export behavior of SMEs in terms of volume and final desti nation of sales. Results suggest that the set of determinants varies w ith firms' internationalization process. In particular, determinants a ssociated with the more global firms are significantly at odds with ou r traditional conception of a small firm and appear to be more aligned with the behavior generally found in proactive large exporters.