ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the general attitude of our firms towards exports at the time of devaluation. One issue we must study is whether devaluation stimulated the managements of our firms into changing their export objectives. In smaller firms, because they have fewer managers, the roles and attitudes of individuals are often more important. An element in the anti-cyclical approach to exporting was that the firm committed only relatively small amounts of money to overseas marketing. The anti-cyclical exporters were not satisfied with the profits they were earning on overseas sales, but the regular exporters were in a better position, though at the time of devaluation few were earning as much on overseas sales as at home. Sixteen of our nineteen firms had overall objectives that required them to achieve a particular sales volume or market share, subject to earning some rate of profit.
