How to measure export performance? Scholars' vs. practitioners' answers

This paper investigates the conceptual domain of the export performance construct in a quest for higher content validity, taking into account the judgments of Brazilian managers. In-depth interviews helped elicit the domain of the construct from the meanings and routines of those actually involved with the concept in practice. Our findings suggest that Brazilian managers seem to take a shorter-term, narrower view in terms of the frame of reference and temporal orientation than do academicians. While the economic and market metrics seem to be important both for academicians and managers, the latter seem to assign much more importance to business process metrics than do the former.