Relationship Marketing Practices and Export Performance of SMEs in an Emerging Economy: A Mediation Analysis

Abstract

This inquiry investigated the association between relationship marketing practices-(RMP) and firm performance-(FP) proxy by export performance-(EP) of SMEs in Ghana, utilizing innovation-(INN) and opportunity exploration-(OPE) as mediators. The inquiry espoused a cross-sectional research design, employing SmartPLS-3.3.3 to perform descriptive statistics, principal component analyses-(PCA), exploratory factor analyses-(EFA), reliability/validity analyses, partial least square-structural equation modeling-(PLS-SEM) path analyses via first-order confirmatory factor analysis-(CFA) for testing the hypotheses. Primary data was gathered employing closed-end-(standardized) questionnaires, implementing self-administered, researcher guided face-to-face real-time (immediate) data collection methodology. Secondary data-(financial information) was extracted from annual reports of the SMEs. Complete enumeration was utilized to select all 360 registered SMEs in good standing with the Ghana Enterprise Agency-(GEA) and Association of Ghana Industries-(AGI) forming the sampling frame and sample size. Findings revealed that all seven RMP explanatory variables namely, communication-(COM), adaptation-(ADP), corporation-(COP), trust-(TST), social connections-(SOC), reciprocity-(RCP), relationship quality-(REQ) significantly exerted positive impacts on FP/EP, with REQ exhibiting the most potent predictor, followed by COM, ADP, COP, TST, SOC, and RCP. Again, findings depict that innovation-(INN) and opportunity exploration-(OPE) partially mediated the relationship between RMP and FP/EP. The paper contributes to literature by incorporating the unexplored mediators of INN and OPE, within SMEs in an emerging economy. By establishing connections and suggesting further avenues for research, the paper strengthens its argument both methodologically and conceptually.

Keywords:

• Export performance
• Ghana
• innovation
• opportunity exploration
• relationship marketing practices
• SMEs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data covering the study will be made available in composite form from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.