| With American agri-food firms competing in a marketplace that is evolving, growing and becoming international in scope, this research seeks to identify and model driving forces that motivate and sustain the internationalization process at the firm level. Specifically, the research tests the supposition that the necessary and sufficient conditions for a smaller agri-food firm to decide to export are: (1) perceived demand, (2) perceived competitive advantages in the transformation process, (3) perceived competitive advantages in the management of transaction costs, and (4) a set of decision rules employed by decision makers that do not inhibit entry into international markets.; In addressing this issue, the research presents a review of relevant literature in the fields of Management, Marketing, Economics and Agricultural Economics. Building on this broad body of published work, a cyclic model of firm behavior is proposed and tested within the context of international marketing decisions of smaller (i.e., less than 150 full time employees and/or less than {dollar}150 million annual gross sales), Michigan-based agri-food firms.; The proposed model asserts that three sets of stock variables (i.e., opportunity, choice and outcome sets) and three flow processes (i.e., decision making, transacting and learning) are fundamental to understanding decisions about exporting. These six components, made operational by using constructs of the proposed driving forces, were tested empirically through eight case studies and a mail survey of 242 firms, of which 112 returned completed questionnaires. Qualitative and quantitative analyses used to examine the data included a comparative analysis of cases, logistic regression modeling and factor analysis.; Principal findings of the empirical research support the theoretic assertions of the overall model. The prescriptive implication of the research for both firms and policy makers is that internationalization in general, and exporting in particular, is dependent upon effective demand that is perceived by the firm, an ability to competitively supply that demand, and a desire to do so. Lacking any of these, decisions and policies advocating the pursuit of international markets will be undermined by the firm's inability to initiate and/or sustain exporting efforts. |
