7 SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION
7.4 Limitations and future research directions
Some of the limitations of this study deserve consideration. The first of these is the acknowledgement that this was a specific study of firms belonging to the software industry. Thus, the findings and the implications of the study can only be generalized for the software industry specifically. Moreover, this study analyzed the export expansion behaviour of the firm and did not focus on foreign resource commitment motives. Further, only four of the capabilities were organized into the market knowledge competence of a firm, whereas in practice market knowl-edge competence can be a portfolio of other capabilities as well.
Few of the theoretical and conceptual limitations were identified in the beginning of the study. Relating to this, even though export expansion was conceived from a dynamic capability perspective, the processes of export expansion were not paid attention to. However, the resources and knowledge that firms utilized to create and develop best practices for export expansion were focused on. Moreover, for-eign market knowledge competence was conceived as a managerial ability in this study. However, it did not emphasize the individual role of the entrepre-neurs/managers in the knowledge development process. Only the overall entre-preneurial vision of the firm was seen as a facilitating factor to market knowledge acquisition.
Finally, it must be noted that the present study might have omitted some other factors that might be important in explaining the barriers to market knowledge.
This is primarily because it is a multidimensional construct and the level ofR2 ap-peared relatively lower than the accepted value.
One may disagree with the conceptualization of speed as an indicator of entry and growth in international markets. However, this conceptualization is central to the context of this study only. It is acknowledged that even though the duration of time is not a good indicator of the speed of international expansion, it may
how-ever indicate how smoothly the interaction between underlying inter-connected variables occurred for foreign market knowledge acquisition and new knowledge creation. This aspect has been referred to as synchronization – the act of coordi-nating events and recognizing when something should or must be done (Weber and Antal 2001; Ancona, Okhuysen and Perlow 2001(b). Smooth synchronization is attributed to an understanding of how firms coordinate their own actions with that of others such as partners, or with external time pressures. However, syn-chronization is not all that easy and finding optimal moments of time for actions (windows of opportunity) can be a difficult task for firms. Thus, speed as a sub-jective indicator may determine the relationship between market knowledge and the evolution of marketing strategy-related capabilities.
Several suggestions for future research can be offered by this study. First, it is suggested to cross-analyze the market knowledge competence of firms belonging to different industries and countries. Afterwards, a portfolio of export expansion capabilities can be generated for several industries by cross analyzing their mar-ket knowledge competence. This could serve as practical information for firms planning to start and expand exports.
Second, given that the alliance learning capability appeared as the most influenc-ing capability on export expansion, it is suggested that future research must in-corporate analyzing the learning processes of firms and their link to capability development. This however was set as the limitation of the present study.
It is also suggested that to achieve a higher level of R2 for the barriers to market knowledge construct, studies focusing on a more comprehensive set of factors must be followed up. For this purpose, barriers to market knowledge can be stud-ied at various levels. This study analyzed the barriers at the firm and market lev-els. However, to comprehend the phenomenon of barriers to market knowledge more deeply, these barriers can be studied separately at the firm and market lev-els. For example, to emphasize the market level, future studies may explore the capabilities and skills of foreign partners as one potential line of enquiry.
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