Experiential and informational knowledge, architectural marketing capabilities, and the adaptive performance of export ventures: a cross-national study

Knowledge-based view (KBV) theory posits that the acquisition and use of relevant knowledge is key to understanding organizational performance. However, there is relatively little empirical evidence to support or refute several important propositions underlying KBV theory explanations of organizational performance. In particular, the extant literature focused on individual technical and scientific components of the knowledge bases of firms in dynamic industries, and largely ignored both different levels of informational and experiential knowledge relevant to the market environment, and the increasingly important context of exporting. Our study addresses these knowledge gaps by developing a framework for export venture knowledge management and empirically examining relationships between different types of individual-level and organizational-level knowledge relevant to the market environment, architectural marketing capabilities, and the adaptive performance of export ventures. Using primary data collected in the United Kingdom and China, our study indicates that export ventures' organizational-level experiential and informational knowledge, and individual-level experiential knowledge relevant to the market environment, is positively associated with export ventures' architectural marketing capabilities, which are in turn associated with the adaptive performance of export ventures.