Export Performance through Effective Marketing Practices: An Investigation of Pakistani Manufacturing Export Firms

Abstract

This study aims to highlight the importance of export in the growth of economy especially in developing countries during globalization. Aggressive export growth of a country is not possible without effective marketing practices, while, to know the impact of marketing practices, it is necessary to identify and quantify the direct or indirect causal relationship between marketing determinants and export performance. The study focuses on Resource Based View (RBV) of exports. The export firms in manufacturing industries of textile, food group and marble industry are unit of analysis. The export performance scale developed by Zou, Fang, and Zhao (2003) is adapted and refined in accordance with several other studies. Substantively, this study empirically investigates the degree of relationship among product strategies, placement strategies, pricing strategies and promotional activates (Explanatory variables) with exports performance of the firms (Dependent variable). While, branding and costing strategies are considered as mediating variables. The study applies the basic marketing concepts because to the best of my knowledge, no prior research is available in this context in Pakistan. It is preliminary marketing research to test export marketing theory in order to determine if it is supported by real world evidence in Pakistan. Therefore, present study is an effort to fill the literature gap for academicians in the field of export marketing in Pakistan. At the same time, it offers detailed insight and recommendations to policy makers and managers to enhance marketing capabilities. For estimation, Correlation followed by Regression analysis, as a most popular and standard analytical approach in measuring export performance is adopted. Wherein, a commonly used method known as Ordinary Least Square (OLS) is applied to draw inference about population regression function. Diverse set of approaches are also used, such as the t-test , ANOVA and log linear model to confirm the results. Using survey data of 141 export ventures from selected industries of Pakistan, the analytical findings reveal that there is direct significant relationship among marketing determinants i.e product, pricing and placement with export performance while promotional strategies are not contributor in export performance due to negative relation. Moreover, branding and costing strategies partially mediate marketing - export performance relationship with different effects. When both branding and costing mediated it weakens the relationship among marketing strategies and export performance as compare to direct relationship while when branding is mediated separately, it strengthens the relation of export performance with product, pricing and promotional strategies and placement becomes insignificant. Conversely, as compare to branding when only costing is mediated separately it only strengthen the value of placement. These findings justify the notion that export marketing strategies are considered as one of the important factor in improving export performance. Hence, effective marketing practices can play a vital role in export’s growth of Pakistan as national prosperity is created not inherited (Porter, 1985).