An investigation of the challenges of internationalization on export performance of manufacturing SMEs: a survey of Lusaka province.
Direct exports to international markets by manufacturing SMEs have been attributed to the challenges of internationalizing SMEs. Challenges of internationalization that act as barriers for internationalization. The study took a quantitative approach to understand the challenges of internationalization on the export performance of manufacturing SMEs. It also aimed at establishing which among the factors could be considered as the best predictor export performance of manufacturing SMEs. This design was carefully selected for the study because it aims to describe the phenomenon with higher statistical accuracy and precision. 92 manufacturing SMEs responded to the questionnaire after a stratified random sampling of the population. The data was analysed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Multiple Regression Analysis with the help of SSPS version 23.0. F – test (1,77) = 67.532 was significant at 0.05 level of significance. Therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected and it was concluded that exogenous challenges negatively affect the export performance of manufacturing SMEs. the F-test (1,77) = 91.829 was significant at a 0.05 significance level. The null hypothesis was therefore rejected and it was concluded that government challenges negatively affect the export performance of manufacturing SMEs. The F – test result (1,77) = 45.348 in table 5.18 (b) was significant at a 0.05 significance level. Based on this, the null hypothesis was rejected and it was concluded that procedural challenges negatively affect the export performance of manufacturing SMEs. the F-test (1,77) = 31.725 was significant at a 0.05 level of significance. Therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected and it was concluded that competition challenges negatively affect the export performance of manufacturing SMEs. competition challenges can not affect the export performance of manufacturing SMEs. Financial Challenges, according to the coefficient result, the export performance of manufacturing SMEs can reduce by 0.590 units for every unit increase in human resource challenges. the F-test (1,77) = 41.075 was significant at a 0.05 significance level. The null hypothesis was rejected and it was concluded that human resource challenges negatively affect the export performance of manufacturing SMEs. the standardized coefficient Beta coefficient -0.706 is negative and significant at a 0.05 significance level suggesting that export performance can reduce by 0.706 units for every increase in financial challenge. Only information/knowledge challenges variable was found to be positive R (Coefficient of correlation) = 0.581: This indicates a moderate positive correlation between information/knowledge challenges and export performance of manufacturing SMEs.
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