Innovative Behaviour of the South African Defence Related Industries

This paper presents a comparative analysis between the innovative behaviours of the defence related industries and other industrial sectors in South Africa. Defence industries are often viewed as constituting the most innovative sector of the manufacturing industry of a country. This industrial sector usually scores high on R&D effort, but the research question is whether this translates into a correspondingly high output of new or improved products and services. This study is based on a survey of companies in the defence related industries and the findings are compared with those of the most recent National Innovation Survey of manufacturing and service industries in South Africa. Some of the variables that were investigated are R&D effort, innovation expenditure, innovated products and services; export performance, innovation partners and information sources for innovation. The study highlights the main differences and similarities between the innovative behaviours of the defence related industries and other industries