Purpose: With its focus on the context of small firm internationalization, this paper aims to assess the important contribution of strategic determinants that influence export performance (EP), considering the mediating effect of competitive strategy.Design/methodology/approach: Based on survey data from 247 Portuguese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) exporting textiles, members of the Portugal’s Textile Association (ATP), this research adopted a quantitative methodological approach, conducting an exploratory and transversal empirical study.Findings: The paper finds suggest that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has a positive and significant influence on differentiation and EP. Moreover, the results also highlight the role of intangible resources (IR) in the design of both differentiation and cost leadership strategies, which drives EP. Finally, absorptive capabilities (ACAPs) are highly related with EP.Practical implications: The paper provides empirical evidence that EO, IR and ACAPs are predictors of competitive strategies and EP. Moreover, and alongside with firm’s resources, this study validates that competitive strategy does matters for small firm managers and the development of one type of competitive advantage is also a major performance enhancer.Originality/value: This study provides fresh insights into entrepreneurship and strategic management literature, as it considers the importance of multiple factors to SMEs business growth. Moreover, this paper presents empirical evidences of the strategies that small firm managers should pursue and policy makers should support. Finally, this is an original study applied to the Portuguese textile industry.

Purpose: This research draws upon the resource-based view and the dynamic capabilities view’s premise that a firm’s resources and capabilities determine competitive advantage. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model entailing simultaneously the impact of intangible resources; and dynamic capabilities and entrepreneurial orientation on export performance.Design/methodology/approach: Therefore, the authors developed a study based on a survey of 265 Portuguese exporting companies. Data were submitted to a multivariate statistical analysis and a linear regression model was applied in order to predict the influence of the intangible resources on export performance. The structural equations model was used for this purpose.Findings: The results show that export performance is directly impacted by dynamic capabilities and entrepreneurial orientation. However, intangible resources do not have a significant direct impact on entrepreneurial orientation; they do have an indirect effect through the mediation of dynamic capabilities. These findings highlight the catalyst role of dynamic capabilities and entrepreneurial orientation, leveraging the role of intangible resources as antecedents of export performance. These findings are valuable inputs for exporting managers and public entities.Originality/value: While previous authors have attempted to analyse certain aspects of this process (linkage between intangible resources and export performance), this research developed a framework that combines these ones with entrepreneurial orientation and dynamic capabilities.

Purpose: This study aims to analyse the effects of (1) open innovation on corporate risk management, organisational strategy and competitive advantage, (2) corporate risk management on organisational strategy, and (3) organisational strategy on competitive advantage. In addition, it assesses (4) the mediating effects of corporate risk management on the relationship between open innovation and organisational strategy.Design/methodology/approach: This exploratory and transversal study takes a quantitative methodological approach based on survey data from 251 hotel executive directors from Portuguese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).Findings: The results confirm relationships between open innovation and corporate risk management, organisational strategy, and competitive advantage. They also confirm the importance of corporate risk management for organisational strategy and organisational strategy for achieving competitive advantage. The research demonstrates that corporate risk management has a mediating effect between open innovation and organisational strategy.Research limitations/implications: The present study proposes a model which provides better knowledge of the relationships between open innovation, corporate risk management, organisational strategy and competitive advantage. The model uses various scales to create a robust analytical measurement instrument. This research provides an in-depth analysis of the psychometric properties of the structural model’s latent variables through PLS-SEM and shows the differentiated paths of the endogenous and exogenous constructs. Finally, the importance of the role of open innovation in the process of attracting the resources necessary, that is, organisational and technological resources, to successfully operate in the hotel sector is highlighted. Thus, this research fills existing gaps in the literature.Practical implications: This research can contribute to the development of new instruments and programmes to improve the operational performance of SMEs in the hospitality sector. Understanding the relationship between the constructs will allow top managers to strengthen corporate resources, technologies and dynamic capabilities, and to promote entrepreneurial policies to enhance the relationship between open innovation and competitive advantage. Ultimately, the results of this study will allow governments, national, regional and local, to create policies, programmes and incentives to help firms adopt or extend the open innovation model, thus promoting the exchange of internal and external knowledge and strengthening the dynamics of the business ecosystem.Originality/value: The paper discloses the relationships between open innovation, corporate risk management, organisational strategy, and competitive advantage, by identifying the main characteristics of the constructs and revealing the linkage between them. This pioneering study analyses the mediating effect of corporate risk management between open innovation and organisational strategy and those mentioned above.

This paper assesses the relationship between open innovation and competitive advantage and the mediating effect of organizational strategy. Using a quantitative methodological approach with survey data from 251 Portuguese hotel executive directors’ small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), this research adopted a quantitative methodological approach, thereby conducting an exploratory and transversal study. Findings show that (1) open innovation influences organizational strategy and (2) organizational strategy enhances competitive advantage. Moreover, the results also highlight that (3) organizational strategy has a mediating effect between open innovation and competitive advantage. The paper provides relevant insights that will lead the firms’ top managers to design and implement strategies and define effective government policies, programs, and incentives to support the development of the firms’ open innovation model in the hospitality sector considering the new smart society and smart cities growing environment.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of intangible resources on export performance, considering the mediating effect of absorptive capabilities and innovation.Design/methodology/approach: The authors use a quantitative research approach by conducting a quantitative study based on survey data from 247 Portuguese small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the textile industry.Findings: Findings suggest that: Intangible resources has a positive, significant and direct influence on absorptive capabilities and on export performance; intangible resources has not a significant and direct influence on innovation and on the opposite direction absorptive capabilities has a positive, significant and direct influence on it; innovation has a positive, significant and direct influence on export performance, contrary to absorptive capabilities that has not a significant and direct influence; and innovation has a mediating effect on the relationship between intangible resources and export performance, and the same does not happens on the relationship between absorptive capabilities and export performance.Practical implications: This paper presents further evidences of the strategies that textile industry’s small firm managers should pursue, and policymakers should promote within the scope of the strategies associated to the system of tax benefits under negotiation for Portugal 2030.Originality/value: While previous authors have attempted to analyse certain aspects of this process (connection between intangible resources and export performance), this research developed a framework that combines these ones with the mediating effect of absorptive capabilities and innovation. This study deepens our understanding and provides novel insights into strategic management and innovation literature, since it combines multiple factors and has obtained the importance of each construct in SMEs business growth.