Towards export success: The role of inter-cultural B2B relationships, immigrant managers and cultural distance

Building on structural and cognitive social capital theories, cultural distance and immigrant manager literature, this study postulates a new conceptualization to demonstrate how interactions of inter-cultural B2B relationships with the customers and suppliers (top executives' interpersonal relationships with the counterparts of their host market's customers and suppliers), perceived cultural distance (PCD) and immigrant manager affect firms' export performance. By examining 230 Australasian firms exporting to Greater China region, we found out that customer relationships have a significant effect on export performance while supplier relationships do not have such effect. To better understand development of B2B relationships, we examined the role of immigrant manager in building of such relationships to confirm that the interaction of customer relationships and immigrant manager has a positive impact on export performance whereas the interaction of supplier relationships and immigrant manager does not have a positive effect on performance. We also included PCD into the conceptual model to explore its influence on the interaction between customer and supplier relationships and immigrant manager and how it affects the export performance. This inclusion demonstrated the importance of immigrant manager in developing customer relationships when PCD is high, however the interaction between supplier relationships, PCD and immigrant manager does not have any significant effect. The results of our study therefore have important implications of when and how immigrant managers can be employed to positively influence development of B2B relationships and improve export performance. This study also makes a significant theoretical contribution to B2B relationships and export performance literature by closing gaps in understanding of the role of PCD and immigrant manager in building of efficient inter-cultural B2B relationships and making a distinction between B2B relationships customer and supplier effects.