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SAJEMS NS 16 (2013) No 3: Book Review 
 

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BOOK REVIEW 
Export promotion. A decision support model approach 
Editors: Ludo Cuyvers and Wilma Viviers. ISBN 978-0-9870096-3-0. Pages: 276. Format: 
Softcover. Sun Press: +27 (0)21 808 3942. To order: www.sun-e-shop.co.za. Price: R 180.00 
(online) and R 285.00 (hard copy) 
 
Export promotion officials are under increasing pressure to allocate their scarce resources in a way 
that strengthens their countries’ existing exports while also focusing on new opportunity areas. A 
key component of a successful export promotion drive is the ability to identify the right foreign 
markets. To this end, Export Promotion – A Decision Support Model Approach offers a 
refreshingly practical, yet empirically sound and finely tuned, approach to export market selection.  

Using a multi-stage filtering process, the decision support model (DSM) described in the book 
systematically screens markets in terms of a myriad of criteria - from political and commercial risk 
and macroeconomic stability, to market size, accessibility and growth prospects – and generates a 
list of the most promising and realistic markets for various product categories. This helps export 
promotion officials to prioritise and plan their various initiatives, and reduces the guesswork that 
often plagues market selection activities.  

The DSM has been successfully applied to Belgium, South Africa and Thailand, and those 
researchers who were involved in rolling out the model in these countries have all contributed to 
the book. The DSM has over the years undergone a number of revisions in response to evolving 
business practices and the need to fine-tune the model’s results in the face of growing competition 
and instability in the global trade arena. A particularly progressive step has been the adaptation 
and application of the DSM for services in South Africa.  

Besides offering a detailed description of the DSM, and the various stages in its development 
and validation, the book also provides an overview of other export market selection methods and 
how they have contributed to export promotion initiatives in different parts of the world. What 
emerges from this analysis is that the DSM is far more comprehensive than earlier models in that it 
takes many more factors into account and processes significantly more data in order to compare 
and rank order markets.  

In giving a detailed description of the development and application of the model, the book 
enables other researchers to replicate and/or adapt the model for different countries that specialise 
in different products and have different production capabilities. In fact, certain chapters constitute 
a veritable ‘how to’ guide to developing and testing the model in a variety of contexts, with special 
emphasis on varying economic conditions and export cultures. As not all countries can produce the 
same amount of empirical data needed to validate the model, the book also offers insight into how 
to cope with such data limitations.  

Another important contribution made by the book is that it turns its attention to how to use the 
results of the model in a practical sense to develop strong export promotion policies and strategies. 
This is particularly valuable given the ever-shifting dynamics of the global business environment, 
and the need for governments to remain responsive to new opportunities and challenges. 

All these features help to elevate the book from the status of a theoretical treatise to more of an 
operational manual for export promotion agencies tasked with formulating facts-based and results-
driven promotional strategies as the precursor to in-depth market and competitive intelligence 
studies.  

Export Promotion – A Decision Support Model Approach makes a timeous and important 
contribution to the literature in the export promotion and development fields, and is highly 
recommended for academics, foreign policy experts, export promotion officials and export 
managers.  

Prof Patrick De Pelsmacker, University of Antwerp, Department of Marketing,  
Faculty of Applied Economics, Prinsstraat 13, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium. Tel. +32 (0)3 2654022.