How do SMEs from different countries perceive export impediments depending on their firm-level characteristics? System approach

Abstract

Research background: The differences in the legal structures, tax rates, and cultural-linguistic issues of various countries have always been a significant concern for SMEs in their exporting activities and internationalization processes. However, since firm-level characteristics might provide some advantages or disadvantages in their operations, their perceptions of export impediments might vary across size, age, and sector groups. Purpose of the article: This paper investigates the perceptions of export impediments by 408 larger-smaller, older-younger, and manufacturing-nonmanufacturing Czech, Slovakian and Hungarian SMEs in a country-based perspective. Methods: The researchers use the random sampling method to create research samples and employ an internet-mediated questionnaire to collect the research data. The researchers use both Independent Sample T-test and ANOVA analyses to find differences between size, age, and sector groups. Findings & value added: While the differences exist between the perceptions of Slovakian larger-smaller and manufacturing-nonmanufacturing SMEs regarding cultural differences, the perceptions of legal and tax-related export impediments by SMEs do not differ depending on their age, size, and sector. This paper contributes to the literature by confirming various perceptions of SMEs in different countries and different characteristics regarding export obstacles and providing an entity-specific and international scope that policymakers and SMEs can benefit from. Awareness of the policymakers regarding the results of this paper that includes differences and similarities in SMEs? perceptions of export barriers might make them have close interactions with SMEs to reduce SMEs? concerns regarding their export risks. On the other hand, SMEs that are aware of the results of this paper can be more interested in having a broader network that includes close relationships not only with intermediary firms, but also with governments to overcome the export impediments.

Unemployment in the Context of Minimum Wage Concept in Slovakia

“…Econometric analysis of linear regression model is used to examine an impact of the above-mentioned exogenic factors. For these reasons, this study also differs from other studies that emphasize the positive contributions of SMEs in the reduction of unemployment rate in Slovakian (Civelek et al, 2020;Ključnikov et al, 2022;Civelek & Krajčík, 2022) and other markets (Amoah et al, 2021).…”

Differences between webrooming and showrooming in terms of selected consumer perception factor

“…Consumers are likely to experience the same purchase benefits when they first search online and then complete the purchase offline, and also when they first go to a brick-and-mortar store to try on a product and then complete the purchase online (for various reasons). In relation to perceived ease of use, the results of the study can be explained by the fact that young people, who made up the majority of the research sample, have no problems working with new technologies (Ključnikov et al, 2020b), because they are not only digitally savvy and motivated to develop their digital capabilities (Civelek & Krajčík, 2022) but also are considered the driving force of online business (Hall et al, 2017;Ladhari et al, 2019) and innovation (Civelek et al, 2021;Ključnikov et al, 2021). With regard to ease of purchase, younger generations do not perceive much difference between shopping online (mobile applications, social networks, etc.).…”

Changes in the perception of business risks to the threat of bankruptcy due to COVID-19

“…The pandemic directly threatened businesses as a result of forced lockdowns and an economic downturn. Due to the key role of SMEs in innovation (Kolková & Ključnikov, 2021;Erdei et al, 2022) and the economy (Civelek et al, 2020;Civelek et al, 2021;Ključnikov et al, 2021), including export activities (Civelek & Krajčík, 2022;Ključnikov et al, 2022;Virglerova et al, 2020), their existential threat was the reason for the introduction of massive financial support schemes around the world (Oláh et al, 2019a;Oláh et al, 2019b;Torres et al, 2022). For example, a study on English companies shows that during the first and second waves of COVID-19 in 2020, up to 92.1% of the total volume of debt provided to companies was covered by the UK government, which is less than 5% under normal circumstances (Calabrese et al, 2022).…”