Effects of Government International Trade Fair (ITF) Assistance Programs and Exhibitors' Internal Resources on ITF Performance

This article applies the resource-based theory to trade fair research to examine the impact of firms' internal resources and the government's International Trade Fair (ITF) assistance programs on the firms' ITF participation activities and performance with a structural equation model analysis. Using survey data gathered from 175 Korean Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which have participated in ITFs under the Korean government's ITF assistance programs, the results show that: (1) a firm's internal resources have a direct impact on ITF participation activities and an indirect positive impact on ITF performance due to their effect on ITF participation activities; (2) the government's ITF assistance programs have a direct impact on ITF participation activities and performance, and an indirect impact on ITF performance due to their effect on ITF participation activities; and (3) ITF participation activities have a direct impact on ITF performance. This means that ITF participation activities act as a mediating variable with a total mediating effect when a firm's internal resources affect ITF performance. In addition, ITF participation activities act as a mediating variable with a partial mediating effect when the government's ITF assistance programs affect ITF performance. As a result, a firm's internal resources indirectly affect an exhibitor's successful performance, whereas government assistant programs both directly and indirectly affect the performance at ITFs.