International business scholars little said on the characteristics of firms dealing with emerging markets and whether they differ from firms addressing only developed ones. The aim of the paper is to fill this gap assuming the perspective of the resource based theory. Our main hypotheses is that companies entering emerging markets need to develop specific marketing and managerial competencies in order to face institutional differences that charachterize those markets. The paper is based on a quantitative analysis of export strategies of 271 Italian firms. Our results show that companies addressing emerging markets have higher international experience, higher managerial and marketing capabilities than those operating only on developed markets; firm’s size and industry are not determinant factors in those processes.
