The Performance of Export Manufacturing Firms: Roles of International Entrepreneurial Capability and International Opportunity Recognition

Purpose: The international entrepreneurial capability has achieved its legitimacy in international business literature. Leveraging capabilities to recognize opportunities are considered a pivotal strategy to achieve success. Drawing on entrepreneurship literature and opportunity perspective, this study investigates the role of international entrepreneurial capability in enhancing international opportunity recognition (IOR) process and the performance of export manufacturing firms. Design: Structural equation modelling has been used to test the hypothesised relationship on 388 export-manufacturing entrepreneurial firms operating in the apparel industry of Bangladesh. Findings: The results signify that three international entrepreneurial capabilities, namely, international networking capability, learning capability, and marketing capability positively enhance the IOR process of export manufacturing firms. IOR process positively mediates the relationships between these international entrepreneurial capabilities and firm performance. Originality: Merely having the international entrepreneurial capability is not sufficient to escalate the firm performance. It must be amplified by various strategic actions such as IOR process. Entrepreneurs need to capitalise on the international entrepreneurial capability to leverage IOR process and generate non-financial performance success. Entrepreneurial firms that focus more on stimulating non-financial performance can secure better financial performance.