Beyond borders: Unraveling the tapestry of export performance through business model innovation, open innovation, and organisational agility

Abstract

Increasing competitiveness in domestic markets has forced many companies to undertake initiatives to sell their products abroad. The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that could help firms improve export performance. This research contributes to the literature in this field by focusing on three variables that recent literature highlights as key drivers of export performance but on which research is lacking: business model innovation, open innovation and organisational agility (operational and market agility). Based on 196 industrial exporting companies, the results indicate that business model innovation, open innovation and one of the two types of agility considered, market agility, are crucial to improving export performance. Moreover, business model innovation mediates the relationship between both open innovation and market agility and export performance. Unexpectedly, our findings show a negative relationship between operational agility and export performance, mediated by business model innovation. The implications of this paper's findings can interest companies seeking to improve their export performance.