Marketing Department, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Nigeria; Marketing Department, Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Ezirim, A.C., Marketing Department, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Nigeria; Nwokah, N.G., Marketing Department, Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
The global interest on the assessment of the relationship between the firms' entrepreneurial orientation and their export marketing performance for varied economies is also recognized in Nigeria, but the field has been under-researched in the Nigerian non-oil sector. Upon all the efforts so far by the previous researchers to rescue these firms from their performance problems, the said problems of the sector continue to increase. To this effect, the present study therefore focused on the determination of the extent of the relationship between the stated variables above. A causal and non-contrived, survey research design and paradigm triangulation design study was conducted. Questionnaire data was generated from 205 firms export managers and personal interview was further conducted on 60 of these same export managers as key informants. Our integrated findings revealed that:(1) there was a weak influence of the firms entrepreneurial orientation on their export marketing performance,(2)Export Market knowledge, Export risk and Innovative behaviour indicated weak influence on their growth in sales and negative influence on their growth in profit. Export market knowledge and export risk showed weak influences on growth in marketshare while Innovative behaviour indicated negative influence on growth in marketshare. The study therefore concludes that the relationship between the firms' entrepreneurial orientation and their export marketing performance is weak in the Nigerian non-oil sector. The recommendation is that, there should be immediate call for the change agents like export marketing consultants and managers who can subject these export managers of the sector to seminars, workshops, conferences trade-fairs, trade-missions, etc. © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2009.