Information sources for new ventures in the Turkish clothing export industry

Recently born global firms have received considerable attention in the entrepreneurship and international business literature. Managers leading these new ventures typically face substantial resource constraints when seeking information critical to internationalization. This paper examines how the owner/operators of new ventures in the Turkish clothing export industry utilize their informal and formal social networks to acquire the information they need to export successfully. Field research and a survey of 250 Turkish clothing firm owners was conducted in Istanbul, Turkey to explore this issue. Findings indicate that informal social ties - particularly friends and family connections - are key sources of information for new-venture firm owners in this industry. Two formal organizations provide export information to entrepreneurs in the Turkish clothing industry, but only one was found to be easily accessible to new-venture firm owners: the Istanbul Textile and Clothing Exporters' Union (ITKIB). OLS regression results reveal that new venture firm owners' perceptions of ITKIB's importance can be explained by their perceived importance of various kinds of export-oriented information offered by this organization. In particular, perceived importance of export-law, market-research, and export-process information drive their perceptions of the importance of their ITKIB membership.