Symbiotic Relationships and Innovation: Impacts on Export Performance of Ghanaian Entrepreneurs

Symbiotic relationships have emerged as an important strategy for enhancing firms' access to external resources, fostering innovation, and improving international competitiveness. However, limited empirical evidence exists on how these relationships influence export performance in resource-constrained emerging economies. Drawing on the resource dependency theory, this paper explores the concept of symbiotic relationships (SR) and their practical implications for the export performance (EP) of Ghanaian entrepreneurs in the non-traditional export sector, with a focus on the mediating role of product innovation (PI). The study explores how established symbiotic collaboration impacts export performance and the integral role of product innovation in this dynamic. The study employed a structural equation model (SEM) to analyze data from 301 non-traditional sector exporters in Ghana. The study found that the symbiotic relationship has a significant positive effect on export performance. In addition, the findings reveal that symbiotic relationships significantly enhance product innovation. Further, the study found that product innovation mediates the relationship between symbiotic relationships and export performance. These insights underscore the importance of enhancing innovative practices within symbiotic partnerships to boost export success among Ghanaian entrepreneurs. This study contributes to the international entrepreneurship and export performance literature by extending Resource Dependency Theory through demonstrating how product innovation serves as the mechanism through which symbiotic relationships enhance export performance. It also provides context-specific evidence from Ghana's non-traditional export sector, where institutional and resource constraints make collaborative relationships particularly valuable for international competitiveness.