Market Sensing Capability, Export Strategy and Their Impacts on Export Performance Improvement (Case study: Exporters of Tile & Ceramic)

Globalization trend of markets is fundamental in understanding the behavior and companies` performance in export markets. To create competitive advantage in the markets and to maintain higher competitive positioning, the companies have to build and increase some resources and capabilities so that they reply to market requirements and respond appropriately to changing conditions. Resources and capabilities directly and indirectly affect the export strategy and ultimately influence the outcomes of the export company. Market sensing capability is the ability to participate in learning about the market environment and apply this knowledge appropriately to lead strategic marketing efforts. The companies with a strong market sensing capability are more able to identify current and future customers needs and demands. They also react more quickly to competitors. Market sensing capability has two dimensions: Market Orientation (Current Events & Trends) and Market Foresight (Future Events & Trends). The purpose of this article is studying the effect of market sensing capability on export performance improvement of Ceramic & Tile exporters. To collect data from 94 companies of exporters, interview and questionnaire were used. To investigate the relationships between research variables, rank correlation (Spearman rank correlation and Kendall tau) were used. Finally, for the evaluation of conceptual model, structural equation model was applied. Research findings showed that exporter companies with higher market sensing capability had more appropriate export strategy, thus their export performances over the past three years have been better.