How The Export Assistant to Improve Export Performance?

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contingent relationship between government marketing assistance for export and the performance of early internationalizing firms in a developing country¿s low-tech industry. The authors employ hierarchical multiple regression based on the data obtained from Indonesia, a developing country and a leading exporter of apparel products worldwide. The authors used a sample of 100 early internationalizing apparel firms to test the hypotheses. Research describes the relationship between export assistance (financial and marketing assistance) and performance as direct. Recently, some researchers have suggested moderators between them. The authors argue that the relationship between the two is contingent on the level of competitive advantage. The authors find that financial assistance and marketing assistance are directly related to export performance. The relationship between financial assistance nor marketing assistance and export commitment to export performance are significantly. The effect of marketing assistance is positively, but only marginally, moderated by competitive advantage.