Persistence of firms’ export performance: do habitual entrepreneurs internationalize similarly in their consecutive firms?

This study aims to determine whether export performance is persistent between habitual entrepreneurs’ old and new exporting businesses (habitual entrepreneurs are those firm founders who establish multiple firms sequentially or manage several firms concurrently). To achieve the aim, this study uses the population of Estonian habitual entrepreneurs’ old and new exporting firms. It indicates that export performance between habitual entrepreneurs’ successive firms persists, but while higher export scale (total export sales) and intensity (share of exports from total sales) are more persistent than lower, the opposite occurs for scope (number of export markets). The results also show that habitual entrepreneurs’ new firms are more likely to become born globals (firms that internationalize rapidly and successfully) if their previous firms’ export performance was high. However, prior export knowledge does not affect the likelihood of habitual entrepreneurs’ new firms to de-internationalize (exit from all export activities) early. The main contribution of this study is the focus on the rarely studied topic of the repetitiveness of export performance within habitual entrepreneurship, and more specifically, the role of various dimensions of habitual entrepreneurs’ export experiences and their subsequent firms’ early export performance.