服务性行业的市场进入经验因素.pdf

THE EXPERIENCEFACTORIN FOREIGN MARKET ENTRY BEHAVIOROF SERVICEFIRMS M. KrishnaErramilli* of North Texas University Abstract. The paper examines the effect of international expe- rience on service firms selection of foreign markets and entry modes. The investigation utilizes survey data from 151 United States-basedservice firms. Results on market selection suggest that, as their experience increases and becomes geographically more diversifled, service firms tend to choose markets that are culturally less similar to their home country. On entry mode choice, the paper departs from traditionallinear conceptualiza- a betweenexperience tions and hypothesizes U-shapedrelationship and propensity for integrated entry modes. Results generally support the hypothesis. The paper explains these findings and describes how service firms resemble and differ from manufac- turing firms in their foreign market entry behavior. The influence of experience on the foreign market entry behavior of firms has been extensively investigated in the literature.However, past research focussed almost exclusively on manufacturingfinns. Whether the results of this research are generalizable to the service sector is not entirely clear. Not only are the production and delivery of services distinctive enough to make a direct transfer of goods marketing experiences to the service sector inap- propriate(e.g., Gronroos [1983], Lovelock [1983]), service firms face some unique challenges expanding internationally [Carmenand Langeard 1980; Cowell 1983; Palmer 1985]. In this paper, we investigate effects of the expenence factor on the service firns foreign market entry behavior. Specifically, we examine the impact of the leng