Exporting as a Strategic Response to Change in the UK Defence Industry

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of firm size and a number of other variables on the decision to adopt exporting as a strategic response to recent changes in the UK defence environment. It is shown that although a significant link is found between firm size and exporting in a univariate context, the relationship vanishes in more complex multivariate models. This suggests that size is acting as a proxy for variables such as the presence of R&D activities and international collaboration which are related to both exporting and firm size. Future studies of small firm exporting hence need to explicitly model the complex interrelationships between size, exporting and other important variables.