| Abstract: | A company’s export operational successes can be identified by looking at its export performance in the international market. Ethiopian textile and garment industry has become the focus of the government and foreign investors in recent years which brought relatively better growth in export earnings, however; the growth is much lower than estimated by the government of Ethiopia and other partners. Several studies tried to identify the daunting internal and external factors that could be barriers to attaining the needed successes in export performance of the textile and garment industry. As one of the challenges in the activities of international market, this study examines influences of difference in cultural elements with destination countries/ companies on export performance of Ethiopian textile and garment companies located in Addis Ababa. Questionnaire and interviews were used as primary data collection instruments and literature and document reviews for secondary as well as the objective data. The sampling technique was non-probability purposive expert sampling and all 37 companies in the sampling frame were taken and 67 questionnaires were returned i.e. 90.5% response rate. The research design is mainly descriptive and based on those results, explanatory inferences are made. In addition, multidimensional export performance measures such as; international market share, market diversification, new market entry rate, export sales and volume were selected while difference in language, values, religion, communication, perception and negotiation were taken as influencing factors. The major findings of this study revealed that among the influencing cultural elements; difference in language, communication, negotiation and values exhibited strong negative association with export performance whereas, religion and perception showed moderate negative association. The implication is that the wider the difference in cultural elements the weaker the export performance of the firms and the country in this particular sector. Recommendations are forwarded based on findings; exporters should develop their cultural knowledge of countries/ companies where they export their products since that enables them to turn these barriers to competitive advantages. |
