Important export skills comparison in different export stage

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to build a theoretical framework that identifies the important skills for successful export from different business areas and make an empirical ranking of their importance.Design/methodology/approachA survey containing 88 practical export skills, selected from the existing literature, was sent to 800 Chinese exporting companies in major Eastern regions of China. With the factor analysis, eight skill categories were identified and 56 skills were found more important.FindingsThe results of the study show that in the higher export stage, skills in international marketing and international trade logistics were viewed as being more important. However, a firm in an early export stage showed more concerns on international trade policy and regulations, international finance and international trade research. Firms with rich export experience viewed strategic management in international trade as being more important than those with less export experience. International payment terms were considered to be very important by firms across all export stages. However, only these firms which were exploring the availability of export business viewed international trade practice as being somewhat important.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, the export skills pool should be extended and examined according to the firms' characteristics. Second, the study is cross‐sectional and there should be specific analysis of different exporting firms. Third, supplement of the study with more samples from other regions should provide more generalizable implications. Finally, another future work should be to examine how export skills affect financial performance of those Chinese exporting firms.Practical implicationsThis paper can serve as useful information for the exporting firms to improve their existing skill training programs. The skills importance rankings can also be used to guide the resource allocations.Originality/valueThis study builds a theoretical framework that identifies the important skills for successful export from different business areas and makes an empirical ranking of their importance based on the data of Chinese exporting firms.