Information interests and exporting: The Spanish natural stone industry

Export decisions depend on a wide variety of information stimuli. The current research focuses on the attention that international entrepreneurs (IEs) dedicate to different information stimuli relating to how the firm operates internationally, and examines whether the IE's attention varies in function of their experience and knowledge. For their empirical analysis, the authors study the information interests of the IEs in the Spanish natural stone industry. They identify three centres of interest: the strategic attractiveness of the foreign markets, barriers to exporting, and support programmes for exporters. The results show that the IEs are most interested in information about support programmes, and that is due to IEs with scant knowledge about the export markets. As the IEs accumulate knowledge about which are the main export markets, they become more interested in information about the strategic attractiveness of these markets. The authors conclude that a trade-off exists between the information about market attractiveness and the information about support programmes in the IE's attention. In contrast, attention towards export barriers behaves independently and depends on the IE's experience.