Seminario - Joan Freixanet

Joan Freixanet (Graduate School of Management – St. Petersburg University) will present his paper “Time to Come Back: The Effects of Export Market Re-Entry and Time-Out Period on Innovation”, joint work with Josep Rialp Criado (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and Fernando Angulo (MacEwan University School). 

Abstract 

While flourishing research has analyzed exporters’ ex-post improvements on innovation via the learning-by-exporting (LBE) effect, we know little about how exporters’ time-out periods and re-entry to foreign markets impact their knowledge stock and LBE processes. To analyze these issues, this paper draws on organizational learning and dynamic capabilities perspectives to assume that as international markets provide exporters with access to innovation knowledge and capabilities, re-entering those markets will enable firms to benefit again from these innovation inflows, thus enabling exporters to increase their product and process innovation output. Furthermore, re-entrants may be able to leverage their export heritage, i.e., the technological knowledge and capabilities developed during prior entries. Still, export heritage may be subject to decay, so we also hypothesize that a long time-out period will have a negative effect on innovation outcomes at the time of re-entry. Finally, we argue that in those areas with higher innovation levels exporters may experience greater depreciation 2 of their export heritage, causing a long time-out period to have a larger negative impact on learning outcomes than in those groups of countries with lower innovation levels. This paper tests these assumptions by drawing on a sample of 1151 Spanish manufacturing firms from 1990 until 2016. The results offer relevant implications for research, managers, and policymakers.