A research on export performance of businesses: The case of Malatya province

The aim of the study is to examine the effect of firm characteristics and demographic and social characteristics of senior executives on export performances of exporting SMEs. In this context, data was obtained through face-to-face interviews with the survey technique using the field research method on SMEs operating in the city of Malatya. In the study, the characteristics of the firm were examined within the scope of the establishment year of the enterprise, R&D activity, the product it exports, the number of countries exported and the subject of activity. The demographic characteristics of the manager were evaluated within the scope of the manager's term of office, age, foreign language knowledge and education level. Social capital characteristics of the senior manager were examined in the context of social capital level, social network relations, global orientation and entrepreneurship tendency. While creating the theoretical background of this research, the theories we use as the basis are; Resource Based Approach, Upper Echelons Approach and Social Network Approach. The study was carried out by collecting data between 01 April-01 June 2020 by survey method on 105 exporters, which are SMEs, whose information was obtained from Malatya Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In the study, various statistical analyzes were made on the data. As a result of the analysis, it has been observed that, unlike the general literature, the company features (the age of the company, technology level, export experience, the level of participation in the fairs and the number of countries that are exported) do not affect the export performance. This situation is explained in the literature as institutional egoism. It was determined that the manager's age, the number of domestic fairs, education and travel experience abroad, the level of social capital and social network relations had an impact on export performance. In the light of the findings obtained, important evaluations have been made for the managers who plan to increase the export performance level in their enterprises with their current working results.