With technological advancement, the world has shrunk in the form of a ‘global
village’. Acknowledging this fact, the main question of this study is going to be: whether
participation of a firm in the global market (in the form of export of its finished produces into
the world-wide end points) has an effect on its performance or not? Here we take into
account the experience of basic metal industry in India during 2000-01 to 2014-15 for the
reason that it is having a vital role in the prosperity of Indian economy. Further, the growth
of sectors such as agriculture, transportation, communication and infrastructure are at the
mercy of basic metal industry’s growth. The study uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)
methodology by taking Input output data of 147 companies that come under basic metal
industry classification have been taken for the analysis. In the first stage of analysis technical
efficiency of all companies has been calculated. Only five sub-groups namely aluminium &
aluminium products, castings & forgings, metal products, steel and steel pipes & tubes have
been considered for the group frontier analysis and for estimating Technology Closeness
Ratio (TCR). With a view to identify the impact of export variable on the performance of
firms, simple regression technique is being used in the later stage using Technical efficiency
scores as dependent variable and export intensity of firm as independent variable. For
controlling the impact of other variables that may influence technical efficiency, the study
uses transport and communication infrastructure, credit intensity, age of firm, size of firm,
total technology expenditures intensity and marketing intensity as explanatory variables
other than export intensity. Eventually we found a significant negative relation between
export intensity and firm performance. This is in contrast to the learning by exporting
proposition anticipated in earlier literatures.