A Comparative Study on the Impact of the Capabilities of Manufacturing and Service Firms on Export Performance: Focusing on the Interaction Effect of R&D

Abstract

This paper empirically examined the impact of firm capabilities and the interaction effect of R&D on the export performance of service firms in comparison with manufacturing firms. To this end, a total of 1,968 Korean firms were analyzed: 243 from service and 1,725 from manufacturing, and two-stage analysis was performed using multiple regression and hierarchical regression analysis. This research confirmed that network and customer capabilities played critical roles in the internationalization of service firms and R&D positively interacted with entrepreneurship and customer capabilities for export performance. These findings suggest valuable policy considerations for government trade policy and academic motivation for further research on the capabilities and R&D of service firms.