The Impact of Exporter Small-Business Enterprise Factors on their own Export Performance and Costs

The main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of exporter company factors on cost advantage and export performance. The study is based on the hypothesis that the capability of market information use capacity, experiential knowledge, and distribution capability factors have a positive impact on reducing the costs of the company and provide cost advantage for the company and thus, financial performance of the exporter company increases. Use of market information, experiential knowledge, distribution capability are discussed as the factors affecting cost advantage and export performance. In order to test the relationship between these factors resource-based views (RBV) were used and a model was developed to measure the effect of company factors in export markets, costs and export performance. During the experiments, a questionnaire was administered to senior executives of exporter companies in Turkey and the hypothesis was thus, supported. The results of the study revealed that increasing the distribution capacity does not ensure cost advantage but it does increase export performance; and that experience-based knowledge provides both cost advantage and increases export performance. The study includes the rest of the results obtained as well as discussions. Keywords: Use of market information, experiental knowledge, distribution capability, low -cost advantage, firm performanc