Export constraints facing Lesotho-based manufacturing enterprises

Orientation: Exporting is preferred by many enterprises as the mode of foreign entry as it requires less commitment of organisational resources and offers flexibility of managerial actions. However, enterprises face a number of challenges when attempting to initiate exports or expand their export operations. Motivation for the study: Lesotho is faced with low destination diversity and low diversity in export products. Main findings: In its findings, the study firstly identified international constraints, distribution constraints and financial constraints as factors constraining exporting. Secondly, it was determined that three exporting constraints, all internal to the enterprise and all related to one factor (namely financial constraint) hampered exporting. Lastly, the ANOVA results revealed that the perceptions of export constraints differed according to the enterprise characteristics, enterprise size, ownership and type of industry.