Innovation capabilities are among the main driving sources of export performance; however, the literature on how exploration and exploitation innovation influence export performance in the context of emerging economies is scarce. As such, the purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship between innovation capabilities and export performance, mediated by exploration and exploitation innovation. For that, an online questionnaire was implemented surveying 250 Mozambican Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the agro-industry, agro-processing, and fishing sectors. Based on a Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM) relating innovation capabilities, exploitation, and exploration innovation to export performance, it is possible to state that innovation capabilities influence the export performance of SMEs in this emerging country. Moreover, exploration and exploitation innovation exert important mediation effects, the latter being more prevalent than the former. The results constitute a major contribution as it is possible to claim that, in the context of emerging economies, Mozambican SMEs have managed to enhance their export performance, based on innovation capabilities, but, also, to master their ambidexterity with exploiting capabilities, normally linked to their current technological trajectories, being more prevalent that exploitation capabilities, which are focused on the pursuit of radical innovation.

Although innovation capabilities are important drivers of export performance, few studies address how they influence export performance in the context of emerging economies. This paper evaluates the moderating effects of government institutional support and firms’ active and reactive internationalization behaviors on the relationship between innovation capabilities and export performance. The sample analyzed is based on 250 Mozambican small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The results indicate that although innovation capabilities positively influence the export performance of Mozambican SMEs, the moderating effects of government institutional support and firms’ active and reactive internationalization behaviors were not found to be statistically significant.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in economic and development growth, particularly in developing countries. Their success depends on the expansion of their markets across borders, based on the strategies adopted, in which differentiation strategies and positional advantages play an important role. As an emerging country, Mozambican SMEs face a lack of resources and business environmental challenges in deploying their unique advantages when competing abroad. As such, the objective of this paper is to study the impact of differentiation strategies on the export performance of Mozambican SMEs, and the mediating effect of positional advantage on the relationship between the differentiation strategy and export performance of SMEs. To achieve this objective, an empirical study was conducted, based on a sample of 250 Mozambican firms, to test a theoretical model that applied Structural Equation Modeling using the Partial Least Squares (PLS-SEM) algorithm, based on SmartPLS software version 3.3.6 (SmartPLS GmbH, Oststeinbek, Germany). The results show that differentiation strategies positively impact the export performance of SMEs and that positional advantage mildly mediates the relationship between the differentiation strategy and export performance. This suggests that Mozambican SMEs may not be properly taking advantage of the positional advantage of the differentiation strategies, as the added value generated by the positional advantage is relatively modest. As such, Mozambican SMEs still need to support their positional advantages to overcome fierce international competition. This study contributes to the knowledge about the consequences of adopting differentiation strategies and positional advantages on the export performance of SMEs, particularly in the context of emerging countries.

Although the relationship between competitive strategy and export performance has been addressed previously in the literature, the moderating effect of the competitive intensity of this relationship is little explored, especially in emerging economies. This study aims to address the moderating effect of competitive intensity in the relationship between differentiation competitive strategy and the export performance of Mozambican small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The study involves the analysis of 250 questionnaires directed to Managers of Mozambican SMEs, using structural equation modeling and Partial Least Squares (PLS/SEM) algorithm (SmartPLS 3.0). The findings show that differentiation strategy has a positive influence on export performance. However, competitive intensity has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between differentiation competitive strategy and export performance.