Specialist supplier or systems integrator? The relationship between competencies and export performance in the Norwegian defence industry

This article investigates how defence contractors' competence profiles affect their export performance. It explores two competing hypotheses derived from international economics and business studies that (i) it is beneficial to be a specialist supplier and focus on a related set of competencies and (ii) it is beneficial to be a system integrator and assemble a broad set of competencies. It makes use of a unique and especially rich data set that includes close to 250 competency variables. These competency variables are used to compute entropy scores for the defence contractors, which again are used in in a fractional logit model to test the two hypotheses. The article concludes that the data only support the second hypothesis - that it is favourable to be a systems integrator.