East Meets West In Export Practices: Findings From Survey Of Asian And Indigenous (White)-Owned U.K. Firms

This paper reports on an ongoing, government funded empirical investigation into U.K. managers' export behaviour and assistance requirements. Specifically, it focuses on one aspect of the study and establishes using MANOVA that differences exist between managers of U.K. small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) owned by executives from particular ethnic origins in relation to their motives for engaging in export activities. It provides a contribution to the knowledge in the area of cross-cultural entrepreneurial research since, although a body of literature exists on the topics of export management in SMEs and the business practices of ethnic minority-owned firms, there is the need to bring these two topics together in the form of a single study to establish the extent to which managers from different sub-cultures differ in their export behaviour and assistance requirements. The study concludes that since managers from particular ethnic origins are found to differ in their export behaviour, policy makers may need to reconsider the ways in which support is provided and targeted to avoid wasting scarce resources.