Export barriers in a changing institutional environment: A quasi-longitudinal study of New Zealand’s manufacturing exporters

The primary gap in export barrier literature has been the lack of studies adopting a longitudinal research design to examine this phenomenon. This vital and timely research addresses this long standing void by investigating the influence of export barriers at two specific points in time, 1995 and 2010. Examining the influence of export barriers across time is fundamental for aligning export development programmes with exporter needs and also for helping export managers craft winning strategies. Following a careful review and synthesis of extant literature, the study uses changes in the exporters’ institutional environment to predict change in the influence of export barriers. Data are drawn via simple random probabilistic samples of manufacturing exporters, from the same working population, using an identical survey instrument. Discriminant analysis results show that the influence of export barriers differs markedly over the two periods as evidenced by the classification accuracy of 85 %. There is support for the overarching hypothesis that export barrier influence is traceable to the changes occurring in the institutional or task environment. Specifically, deregulation of the economy, commitment to free trade, increased adoption of information and communication technology communication and floating of the exchange rate appear to shape the influence of export barriers for New Zealand exporters. Thus, while past research ascribes change in export barrier influence to organizational and internationalization variables, our study suggests that over time the institutional environment can explain export barrier influence. The study makes the case for policymakers to better align export development programmes with prevailing barriers while challenging export managers to revisit and augment the skill sets required for export success.