Exhibitors’ Performance at International Trade Shows: Does Export Firms’ Experience Matter?

Abstract

A myriad of combinations of organizational characteristics is more likely to be successful than a limited number. To test this, we conducted an analysis comparing a variables’ single effect with the configurational effect identified using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsCQA) of 75 exporting firms exhibiting at three different international trade shows (ITS) in 2018 and 2019. We observed that some dimensions of a firm’s experience, including the firm’s age and previous trade show participation were consistently sufficient for the firm’s sales-related activities, i.e. sales, feedback on new products, test new product concepts, and develop new product segments.

Keywords:

• Sales-related activities
• international trade show
• firm’s experience
• configurational analysis
• B2B

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 During the calibration stage, the thresholds recommended by Woodside (2013) were also applied, but no significant configuration in the intermediate solution was found.

Additional information

Funding

Funded by the Universidad de La Frontera, Project DI20-0087.