Export Intention of Small and Medium Tunisian Enterprises

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License unported 3.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that original work is properly cited Abstract Due to globalization, export is considered as an essential asset for the continuity and profitability of businesses. Nevertheless, export is a complex process. To initiate and to develop this strategy, a business must clear away the internal and external constraints and take advantage of the stimulating factors. The latters show up at each stage of the process. These stimuli are especially decisive during pre-export behavior or the intention stage. So the export intention is explained by some variables: the differential advantages, the organizational predisposition and the perception of the risk. Our conceptual model has been applied on a sample of small and medium Tunisian enterprises (SME). Inspiring by churchill's methodology, our principal conclusion is that export is the strategy implying less capital and risk than the other modes of entry. However this decision may turn up like suicidal if the firm having the intention to export doesn't proceed by an assessment of its export.


Introduction
With this wave of globalization and liberalization of exchanges that characterizes today's world, enterprises are bound to take into account the global market.In this perspective, the Tunisian enterprises which are mostly SME needed to adopt strategies of internationalisation through the exports since such a strategy involves less capital and commercial and financial risk than other modes of entry.But, such a necessity can appear like a hazardous or suicidal decision if the enterprise having the intention to export does not start by assessing its potential of export.
In this field several researchers raised the problem of the behavior hardback preexport to the intention to export like Wiedersheim -Paul and Welch (1978).The latter is defined by Reid (1981) as being the motivation, the behavior, beliefs and waiting opposite the contribution of the export to the growth of the business.
Our issue resides in the explanation of the intention to export through three factors, the differential advantages, the organizational predisposition of the business and the risk discerned all while doing its empiric analysis in the case of the Tunisian SME.
The objectives of our article are the following: • To develop a model in order to explain the intention to export for the Tunisian SME; • To determine empirically what makes the difference empirically between those who have the intention to export and those do not.
Communications of the IBIMA 2 A review of the literature followed by the description of the model, the adopted methodology and the main results will are presented: 2. The literature Review

Schools of thoughts
Studies on the behavior of export increased to generate two big schools of research.
The first focuses on the explanatory factors of success in exports while the second is interested in the export process, Eugene and Pasternack (1994).
2.1.1.The explanatory factors of success: The explanatory factors of the export success are tributary to the organizational features of the business and the strategy of export marketing: • For the organizational features of the business, researchers mentioned the size of the business, Louter (1991), Dicht andal (1986), Ogram (1982); Resources of the business that represent a determinant decision of the export behaviour, Weinrauch andRao (1974), Cavusgil (1984) ...etc, managerial expectations where the action of top management on export decisions is an obvious success.So managers tend to base their expectations on the profitability, risk, the cost of the export from the experience of their businesses and of the other and their perceptions of the potential impact of the perceptual environment change, Cavusgil (1984).
• For the strategy of export marketing, it implies several measurements namely the expansion and the commercial competitiveness.Besides the scheduling and the manner, whose function marketing is organized, reflect this strategy, Louter (1991).

2.1.2
The process of export We can consider in this setting two groups of researchers Johnson and Czinkotas (1982): • The first has been interested in motives that push and attract managers to opt for the internationalisation through the export.These motives are of double nature.Proactive motives indicating an aggressive export behaviour such as the differential advantages, the growth through the expansion of the market and the opportunity of the profit Eugene and Pasternack (1994), Leonidas (1995) …etc., on the other hand, the reactive motives refer to the passive engagement in the export as answers to environnemental pressures such as overproduction and the reduction of local sales Eugene and Pasternack (1994).

•
The second shows that decisions to export take place in a set of stages where each represents a raised degree of engagement of the business in the export.Among these stages, it mentions the effect of the experience (the effect of training) and success in the reach of the objectives, Barker (1992) and Jouy (1993) …etc.
3. The description of the explanatory model

The export intention
Ajsen and Fishbein (1980) based themselves on the measure of the intention to operate a given action in order to foresee the future behavior.According to these authors the intention of the individual to fulfil a given act depends essentially on his attitude towards his governing norms, on his behavior and motivation to conform himself to these norms.
Let's move to the case of the firm, Reid (1981) defined the export intention as being the motivation, the behavior, beliefs and expectations towards the contribution of the export to the growth of the business.
3 Communications of the IBIMA Cavusgil (1984) affirms that there is a relation between the intention to export and the organizational features associated to the export.Louter (1991) sees that the most important factor to explain the intention to export is the managerial attitude towards the export.Yang and Alden (1992) found a relation between the intention to export, the capacity of the expansion of the market, gates to the export, the differential advantages, the organizational predisposition and the perception of the relative risk to the export.In the light of what has been advanced, we notice that most researchers mention the following variables to explain the intention to export.
• The differential advantages, • The organizational predisposition, • The perception of the risk.
We analyze in what follows every variable.

The differential advantages
These differential advantages are considered at two levels, the country and the business.Porter (1990) found that the competitive advantage of a country influences the competitive capacity of business on the international market through the natural resources, the development of the country, the maturity of infrastructure and telecommunications, the quality of research and the development, the bases of knowledge and the requirement of the local demand in terms of innovation.
At the level of the firm, an important number of researchers underlined the importance of certain features of the business at this level; good combination product/market, skills and resources, competitive prices, technological advancement, flexibility in relation to changes…, Yang and Alden (1992)…etc.
We can already propose the following hypothesis 1: H1: The differential advantages are positively bound to the export intention.

The organizational predisposition
This concept involves several senses; knowledge, attitudes and intentions, motivations, perceptions, knowledge, faculties and managerial expectation towards the export, the organizational culture favourable or unfavourable Eugene andPasternack (1994), Louter (1991), Kaufmann and Schmidt (1994), the training in the export or the unsuitability of the export experience, the degree of responsibility and managerial engagement, Constantines and Morgan (1994), Yang and Alden (1994).
When, the second hypothesis is stipulated: H2: The organizational predisposition can be bound positively or negatively to the export intention.

The discerned risk
The perception of the export risk affects managerial strategies extensively.For this reason businesses must consider the total international risk in the conception of any internationalisation strategy.This risk includes the uncertainty of the environment (political risk, natural risk…etc.),the uncertainty of the industry (change of tastes and preferences, the apparition of substitutable products, competition, change of the technology…etc.)and, in short, appearancethe operational, financial or behavioral uncertainties,…etc.Muller (1992), Johnson and Czinkota (1982) identified a set of factors of risk affecting negatively the attitude towards export among others, the lack of information, the lack of adequacy of the staff, of the financial and commercial resources, the physical distance and cross culture…etc.
We can express the third hypothesis: H3: The discerned risk is associated negatively to the export intention.Thus, the conceptual model is as follows: Communications of the IBIMA 4

Genesis of an item sample
This stage is achieved in four phases: -Proposition of measures for each construct: The dependent variable, the export intention (IE), is measured by a scale of Likert of 5 points going from "very strong intention" to" no intention ", Eugene and Pasternack (1994).We suppose that those having the strong intention will be invited to answer the other questions (see Appendix 1).The first independent variable " differential Advantages" (AD), has been measured by 36 measured items on a scale of Likert of 5 points going from " quite okay " to " Not at all okay " according to Eugene and Pasternack (1994), (see Appendix 2).The second independent variable "organizational Predisposition" (PO), has been measured by 22 items on a scale of Likert of 5 points, Eugene and Pasternack (1994), (see Appendix 3).Finally, for the third independent variable "discerned risk" (R), we propose only one question, measured on a scale of Likert of 5 points going from " the strongest " to " the weakest ", (see Appendix 4).
• The choice of the scale of Likert is justified, since methodological efficiency is satisfactory.Its operational efficiency is good for its simplicity (comprehensible).This scale is much recommended in domains of behaviour and psychology, Vernette (1991).
• An investigation test has been led by 9 SME, three belonging to the Textile sector and Clothing, three to the sector of leather and shoes and the last three to the food sector.These SME chosen by judgment are based in the region of Sfax.This investigation test was very useful to test the vocabulary employee, the length of the progress of the questions…etc.
• The choice of a final sample: the latter involves 88 chosen enterprises according to suitability whose features are summed up in Table 1.Three tests of unidimensionality have been applied on the three constructed (IE), (AD) and (PO) namely the factorial exploratory analysis, the test of interrelationship item/ total score, Vernette (1991) and the test of adequacy of the sample of MSA measures or KMO that must pass a doorstep of 0.5 (given by SPSS).
A test of reliability α of Cromback whose requirement is located between 0.8 and 0.9 for an applied survey, Nunally (1967) and Perien, Chérom and Zins (1984).
Details of results of (IE), (AD) and (PO) will be presented in Tables 2, 3 and 4.These tests generated some elimination item and the appearance of derived constructs for (AD) and (PO) following the factorisation so tests of reliability for derived constructs are presenting as follows: • For (AD), the emergence of three coins constructs, "The competitiveness of suppliers and the technological and commercial advantages of the product" reflected by F1, "The state of the competition" reflected by F2 and "The state of the demand" underlined by F3.It is compliant to results of Porter (1990).
• For (PO), the emergence of three derived constructs supported by the theory, "proactive motives and the manager's knowledge" reflected by F3, "The reactive motives" reflected by F2 and " The experience in the export "underlined by F1. • The convergent validity and discriminative validity: The convergent validity is demonstrated for measures of the two constructed (AD) and (PO), knowing that the þvc indications are superior to 0.5, Fornells and Larker's (1981).The discriminative validity is also demonstrated since constructs are so distinct from one another that the extracted average variance of every construct is superior to the covariance between that construct and another one, Fornell and Larker's (1981).
• Nomologic validity: permits to test the theoretical validity of constructs as well as its conformity with what is conceived by the theory, Vernette (1994).

Results and discussions
The method chosen according to the objective of research and the nature of variables is the multiple linear regression permitting to identify the degree of explanation of the variation of a dependent variable by the independent variable variation.This method is only applied after a verification of the four conditions of application of a regression, Wheelwrigt and Makridakis (1983).
Two linear regressions have been applied on two groups of the sample, enterprises having an experience in the export and those that never exported.The model for the first group is statistically meaningful to p=0.02, with a R2=0.418 and a test of Fisher of 2.772>2.For the second group the model is as meaningful to p=0.0001 with a R2=0.645 and a Fisher of 11.683>2.

The differential advantages
For the experienced businesses the state of suppliers and advantages of products seem to be a necessity to enliven the intention of reexport, the state of the demand is bound negatively to the intention to export.It is generally owing to a stage of mind influenced by logic of production and not of need.In short the state of competitors and especially through their innovations stimulates these businesses to improve their competitiveness to attempt the export.This result is nearly compliant to the one of Eugene and Pasternack (1994).As for businesses that never exported, the differential advantages represent brakes for the intention to export.Thus there is a partial acceptance of the H1 hypothesis since the differential advantages can be bound positively or negatively to the intention to export.We can find explanations while examining the reality of the Tunisian SME.Indeed, if for the SME already exporters, only the competitiveness of suppliers, the product and the competition and not the pressure of the demand stimulate the intention to export.It is because, in the case of SME, the position of power is occupied mostly by firms rather than by consumers (Only the big firms have a marketing service)

The organizational predisposition
Results of (PO), show that for the first group, reactive motives, proactive motives and knowledge are bound negatively to the export intention.This indicates that for this group, the export is only occasional and non inherent to the offensive or defensive strategies.And managerial knowledge on the foreign markets is very limited.Whereas the past experience, represents a motive to renew the export and indicating a certain satisfaction.As for the second group, proactive motives and knowledge are bound positively to the export intention.It implies that the managers of this group can achieve the expansion of their enterprises only through export, therefore, an organizational change and knowledge on the other markets has proved to be necessary.In the light of these results, the H2 hypothesis is confirmed.

The discerned risk
The perception of the risk of the foreign business, compared to the one on the local Communications of the IBIMA 10 market, influences the intention to export, depending on the degree of the exporters satisfaction with their past experience, since those who have never experienced this activity fear this risk of internationalisation. Thus, H3 hypothesis is confirmed.These results coincide with those of Eugene and Pasternack (1994).

Conclusion
In a globalized word, the Tunisian SME are invited to build true strategies of internationalisation.Even though export is the fashion generating the least financial and commercial risk, it must be studied in a strategic way and should not result from luck and opportunities.Our SME must find the good remedies to detain the differential advantages and a good organizational predisposition to pull a place in an intensive competitive universe.In this article, we tried to reflect the reality of the Tunisian SME in an international context, It cannot delete the theoretical and empiric limits of this study that we will try to complete in an ulterior research work.The risk of the foreign business compared to the one of the national market is:

Bigger big
The same weak weaker

Fig1.
Fig1.The conceptual model 4. Research methodologyWe refer to Churchill's paradigm (1979), whose stages are: • To specify the domain of constructs (stage already established theoretically) • To generate a sample of items, • To purify measures (tests of unidimensionality and reliability) • To ascertain the new measures' reliability, • To test of the validity of constructs, • To develop norms.

Table 1 :
Characteristics of the sample