Measures of the independent variable construct

Experiential knowledge in this study was treated as experience and learning.

However, the impact of experience was linked to capability development. Direct measures treating experiential knowledge as experiential learning (a subjective construct) are unfortunately not present in literature. Learning is a non-quantifiable concept. For that reason, the impact of experiential knowledge on two types of capabilities: alliance management and marketing planning and im-plementation capability was measured.

Previous studies used measures of experiential knowledge as either the number of years a firm has been involved in international operations (Erramilli 1991), as the proportion of foreign sales to total sales (Aulakh and Kotabe 1997), as the number of countries in which a firm has operated internationally (Agarwal and Ramas-wami 1992) or the number of previous entries into international markets. How-ever, these measures were not considered suitable for this study.

Alliance management capability

To analyze the alliance management capability, two questions were posed to the managers. The first question included three items, which aimed as measuring the alliance management capability related to the extent software firms are committed to building a relationship with distributors in foreign markets. Managers were asked to rate the relationship management factors on a seven-point Likert scale.

This is shown in Table 5 as question 1.

The second question consisted of four items, which aimed at understanding the extent to which the firm depended on distributors in the foreign market. The de-gree of dependence was expected to show how critical it was for the firms to manage the alliance in order to acquire knowledge of the market. In this study, the managers were asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed. By measuring the dependence between the software firms and their distributors, the potential need to develop an alliance management capability can also be corre-spondingly measured. The first item was developed from the preliminary case study analysis. The rest of the three items belong to Shankar (1994). This is shown in Table 5 as question 2.

Table 5. Measurement of alliance management capability

1) very low 2) moderately low 3) slightly low 4) neutral 5) slightly higher 6) moderately

1) very low 2) moderately low 3) slightly low 4) neutral 5) slightly higher 6) moderately

1) very low 2) moderately low 3) slightly low 4) neutral 5) slightly higher 6) moderately

1) very low 2) moderately low 3) slightly low 4) neutral 5) slightly higher 6) moderately

1) very low 2) moderately low 3) slightly low 4) neutral 5) slightly higher 6) moderately higher 7) very high

Ganesan (1994); Shankar (1994)

FUTRPERF: Our foreign part-ners are crucial to our future performance.

1) very low 2) moderately low 3) slightly low 4) neutral 5) slightly higher 6) moderately

1) very low 2) moderately low 3) slightly low 4) neutral 5) slightly higher 6) moderately higher 7) very high

Ganesan (1994); Shankar (1994)

Shankar (1994) investigated a variety of factors influencing the long-term orienta-tion of both the retailers and vendors in an ongoing relaorienta-tionship as well as the antecedents to long-term orientation. The mutual dependence was found to be positively associated with a long-term orientation. The sample of the study con-sisted of five retail department store chains and 150 questionnaires were sent to senior sales representatives. A total of 52 representatives (42 %) responded. The coefficient alpha of the scale was reported to be .94.

Marketing implementation and planning capability

Experience in marketing implementation and planning activities was assumed to affect the marketing planning and implementation capability. Multi-item

reflec-tive measures were adopted from Morgan, Zou, Vorhies and Katsikeas (2003).

This is shown in Table 6.

Table 6. Measurement of implementation and planning capability

Item Scale Source

MKTSTRAT: Effectively translating planned export marketing strategies into ac-tions.

1) very low 2) moderately low 3) slightly low 4) neutral 5) slightly higher 6) moderately

1) very low 2) moderately low 3) slightly low 4) neutral 5) slightly higher 6) moderately

1) very low 2) moderately low 3) slightly low 4) neutral 5) slightly higher 6) moderately higher 7) very high

Preliminary case analysis

5.3.1.2 Customer knowledge

Originally rooted in the market orientation perspective, customer knowledge is a relatively new concept in the field of international business studies. Market orien-tation studies measure it as an overall indicator of a firm’s market orienorien-tation and no specific measurement of the construct per se exists in literature. In this study knowledge of the customer needs was seen as a composite measure of the new product development and alliance learning capabilities. Their operationalization is mentioned in Tables 7 and 8.

New product development capability

New product development capability was measured by a three-item, seven-point Likert scale to assess the manager’s perception of the product’s superiority rela-tive to competing products (see Table 7). The items here were originally devel-oped by Song and Parry (1997) as a measure of competitive advantage on ten-point Likert scale. However, to maintain the consistency of the Likert scale used in this study, a seven- point scale was used. Song and Parry’s study consisted of 36 in-depth case study interviews conducted with both Japanese and U.S. firms.

The items were pretested by a panel composed of academicians and new product development managers. The sample of their study consisted of 404 Japanese and 312 U.S. firms.

Table 7. Measurement of new product development capability first on this market with this type of product. a job or do something he/she could not presently do with

In the theory of the present study, the alliance learning capability of a firm was seen to be linked to its learning orientation and the knowledge sharing mecha-nisms at the firm and market levels which are employed to acquire knowledge from its partners. Thus, three questions were posed to the respondents which kept these theoretical links at the forefront. The first question related to the learning orientation factors of the company (Table 8 – question 1) and the second to meas-uring the extent to which knowledge sharing activities within the firm contributed to the understanding of the needs of the customers (Table 8 – question 2). The third question related to what extent the knowledge sharing activities between the firm and the partners contributed towards learning the needs of customers. For this question, a four-item, seven-point Likert scale was developed asking the managers to rate the information exchange between the distributors and the firm.

Two of the items are taken from Lusch and Brown (1996) and the other two from the preliminary case analysis. This can be seen in Table 8 as question 3.

Lusch and Brown (1996) used the two items to measure a firm’s perception of the extent to which its distributor keeps it informed of relevant information that could facilitate future business activities. The sample of the study consisted of 3225 firms and the response rate was 454 usable questionnaires (28.8%). A com-posite reliability of .87 was reported for this scale.

Table 8. Measurement of alliance learning capability collec-tive wisdom in our firm is that if we quit learning,

competitive conditions of