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; Maclayton, D.W., Marketing Department, Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
The recent global heightened interest on the assessment of the relationship between the entrepreneurial orientation and export marketing performance of firms in varied economies also received its pride of place 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 the firms from their export performance problems, the said problems of the sector continued to increase. To this effect, this present study therefore focused on the determination of the extent of the relationship between the stated variables above. A causal, non-contrived, survey research 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) country image abroad showed insignificant influence on the relationship between the firms entrepreneurial orientation and their export marketing performance, (3) Export Market knowledge, Export risk and Innovative behaviour indicated weak influence on the firms 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 trad-fairs, trademissions, etc. © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2010.