Marketing and financial barriers in agri-food exporting

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically research marketing and financial export barriers by perceptions of agri-food firms from small developing country with preferential trade position in Europe. Using resource-based and contingency theories as framework, differences in barriers perceptions between exporters classified by five organizational factors were tested. Design/methodology/approach Secondary data collection for literature review, conceptualization and hypotheses setting, and primary data collection for hypotheses testing were employed. Survey’s variables and their measurement were derived from previous studies, so exploratory factor analysis was utilized to test dimensionality. A total of 224 agri-food exporters were surveyed and 86 usable responses were collected. The single export venture was used as unit of analysis. ANOVA and t test were utilized for hypotheses testing. Findings Results indicate that the biggest barriers are price competitiveness and insufficient government support. Larger firms and foreign-owned ones perceive researched export barriers as lower than smaller firms and domestic-owned ones. Research limitations/implications The primary limitation of the paper is its one country scope, limiting generalizability. Despite this, research derives several implications especially for management and policy-makers. Originality/value This research confirmed propositions of resource-based and contingency theory in export barriers researching in a case of agri-food sector of small, developing economy with preferential position in European trade, but challenges treating export experience, intensity, and product type as firm’s valuable resources and internal contingencies.

Transitioning from Fixed-Length Questionnaires to Computer-Adaptive Versions

To investigate how an existing questionnaire can be transformed into a computer-adaptive version, we developed an adaptive version of the Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire (ICQ). This adaptive version was based on a representative sample (N = 1934) of respondents who answered 30 items from a German translation of the ICQ. A random half of the sample was used to evaluate test dimensionality, calibrate the items, and model the relation between person parameters and raw total scores. The other random half of the sample was employed to assess the comparability of person parameters and raw scores. After these tests and item calibration, 28 items remained in the item pool. A high correlation was found between raw scores and estimated scores using all items. Raw scores could be predicted accurately from estimated person parameters. These results indicate that our approach is an effective technique for transforming an existing questionnaire into a computer-adaptive version.