Investigating the Impact of entrepreneurial orientation on the export power of small and medium enterprises with emphasis on mediating role of organizational learning capability and innovation performance

In the current world, export development is not only limited to increasing foreign exchange earnings through export of goods and services, but also plays a more important role as a growth strategy and even economic development in the world. So, how can a successful exporter become more relevant every day? Present research aimed  to study the effects of entrepreneurial orientation on export power through investigating the mediatory role of organizational learning and innovation performance in small and medium sized exporting companies. The research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive correlational in terms of data collection method. The statistical society consisted of 1000 small and medium enterprises, active in the export sector, that are members of and listed in the Small and Medium Business Information Base. Regarding the statistical population, the sample size, based on Morgan's table, was 278. Through cluster sampling, 305 questionnaires were collected electronically. The reliability of the research tool was verified by internal consistency and its validity through convergent and divergent validity. The research hypotheses were verified in the framework of Structural Equation Modeling with the help of LISREL software. For collecting information, three standard questionnaires for entrepreneurial orientation, organizational learning capability, and innovation performance were used and the export power, consistent with the literature of the field, was considered as the share of export in the total sales of each company. At the confidence level of 0.05, the test results of the research hypotheses, while confirming the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on export power, showed that entrepreneurial orientation directly increases the company's export capacity; it can indirectly, and through two mediatory variables of innovation  performance and the organizational ability to learn, identify the unconsidered needs and wants of the customers in the global market and, accordingly, increase the export power of the companies.