Research seminar by Dr. Sui Sui

Title: The effects of digital capability development on firms’ export-financial performance under immigrant ownership

Description: Immigrant exporters stand out as young and small companies with a strong export orientation. However, they can struggle to scale their export activity profitably. Yet, we inadequately understand the performance inhibitors at work. Therefore, we investigate why a performance gap can arise between immigrant and non-immigrant exporters pursuing high export intensity. In addition, we assess whether digital resources can close this performance gap. We do so by integrating insights from the liability of outsidership and embeddedness perspectives. Our underlying mechanism links immigrant exporters to a previously overlooked network scalability problem that digital resources can solve. Based on a representative sample of 7,761 Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), we confirm the performance gap by showing that the return to high export intensity is lower for immigrant than non-immigrant exporters. However, when immigrant exporters have substantial digital resources, this performance gap does not just close; it reverses. Our nuanced insights and findings have the potential to significantly contribute to immigrant entrepreneurship and broader international business theory and practice on digitization in internationalizing firms.

Bio: Dr. Sui Sui is a Professor at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her research focuses on understanding the internationalization of small businesses and entrepreneurs, with an emphasis on how strategies, resources, and ownership factors—including immigrant, women, and Indigenous ownership—affect firm survival and growth. Currently, she is also exploring the impact of board gender and cultural diversity on corporate environmental performance. She has published in the most prestigious Financial Times Top 50 academic journals such as the Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and received numerous research grants and awards. She serves in editorial positions for the Journal of World Business, Multinational Business Review, Journal of Comparative International Management, and Revista de Administração de Empresas (Journal of Business Management), and as an Associate Member for the Diversity Institute at Toronto Metropolitan University.