• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.107-120
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• 2015

This study compares own-brand exporting SMEs' utilization of various government-run exporting service programs that provided support in searching for overseas distributors, in overseas market research, and in marketing support. Researchers measure how important firms found each of these components of the program, as well as firms' satisfaction with these services, based on the type of product exported (industrial vs. consumer goods) and the level of economic development of the host countries (developed, newly industrialized, and developing.) A total of 245 own-brand exporting SMEs were surveyed and analyzed in this study. Results indicated that KOTRA was the most frequently used organization by the sample SMEs, regardless of the product type and the economic level of host countries. Industrial-goods exporting SMEs found support in searching for overseas distributors more important than consumer-goods exporting SMEs. SMEs exporting to developed countries considered overseas market research and marketing support and searching for overseas distributor programs more important than SMEs exporting to NIE or developing countries. In addition, industrial-goods exporting SMEs were more satisfied with the overseas market research and marketing support and searching for overseas distributor programs than consumer-goods exporting SMEs. However, there were no differences in satisfaction among firms based on the level of economic development of host countries. Several cases of significant correlations between the importance of and satisfaction with the utilization of government exporting service programs were found.