How Institutions Influence SME Innovation and Networking Practices: The Case of Vietnamese Agribusiness

This paper addresses impacts of the institutional framework on small and medium‐sized enterprise (SME) innovation and networking practices. Through an explorative study of a domestic SME‐dominated sector in Vietnam, we find that the institutional framework limits incentives for long‐term investments, resulting in exploitative cost‐control strategies rather than product‐oriented innovation. Due to dominating social norms, SMEs form trust‐based friendship networks, potentially limiting knowledge acquisition and weakening business rationality. Institutional pressures reinforce negative influences on SMEs' incentives to develop innovation ambidexterity. The findings suggest that new institutional economic sociology provides a promising foundation for understanding how institutional frameworks influence SMEs' innovation practices in emerging economies.     

Networking and internationalization of SMEs in emerging economies

Networking has been established as an important source of small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) business expansion in many developed economies. Often, it provides the necessary intelligence leading to internationalization. The question this study addresses is “What are the roles and sources of networking of SMEs internationalization in emerging economies?” This study responds to this query through a dyadic study involving expert-opinion survey of SME development professionals and case studies of SMEs internationalization. The convergent views identified three interconnected sources of networking for SMEs internationalization, which are government institutions, business associates, and personal relations. The results affirmed that accomplishment of internationalization requires cohesion among the myriads of networking sources and operating agencies. A systems approach towards supporting the creation and management of networking linkages for internationalization combines systems thinking perspective with institutional view. It emphasizes integration of coordination, facilitation, and monitoring functions. Thus, suggesting institutional support and systems thinking are important constructs in the theory of international entrepreneurship. Policy makers and entrepreneurs of SMEs gain actionable points to ensure effectiveness of institutional support mechanism and to enhance their business internationalization, respectively.     

The Brand Personality of Nonprofit Organizations and the Influence of Monetary Incentives

This article contributes to the limited literatures on small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using an institutional theoretical framework, we analyzed fieldwork interviews with twenty SMEs and perspectives of 165 SME managers and workers in textiles, garment, and footwear industries, the most important wage-earning sector in Vietnam. Having understood in the context of a developing “market economy with socialist orientation” (thus a “Southern perspective”), we find that socially responsible practices and expectations developed long before the arrival of CSR as a western concept and an MNC agenda. While identifying and contributing ideas concerning forms of “informal” CSR practices—influenced by social and cultural expectations—to the CSR/SME literature, we are conscious of the mixed effects of these practices and the ongoing nuanced negotiations between workers and managers in these SMEs. In our research, we found that it takes both domestic and international stakeholders to improve labor conditions in Vietnam under the banner of CSR.     

中小企业贷款风险分类模式探讨

中小企业在国民经济中占有举足轻重的地位并发挥着极其重要的作用.然而,在获得金融支持方面,中小企业却仍处于"弱势群体"的地位.这种"强位弱势"的境况已经成为当前中小企业融资难的真实写照.以商业银行为主的金融机构在中小企业融资问题上要充分发挥作用,商业银行要完善组织架构、强化制度建设,建立起一套有中小企业特色的经营管理体系及运行机制.本文基于此,结合建行实际,以中小企业贷款风险管理为研究对象,针对相关问题展开了讨论,希望能够为相关领域的研究提供指导和帮助.     

Assessing Social Capital: Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Germany and the U.K.

"Social capital" can be considered to be the product of co-operationbetween various institutions, networks and business partners. It haspotential as a useful tool for business ethics. In this article weidentify categories pertinent to the measurement of social capital insmall and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). By drawing on three differentsectors, one business-to-business service, one business-to-customerservice, and one manufacturing, we have enabled the consideration ofsectoral differences. We find sector to play an important part inrelation to business practices and social capital. Our inclusion of SMEsfrom Germany and the United Kingdom has called attention to cultural,institutional and economic aspects of two regions of Europe and how theycan influence SME social capital. Social capital is found to beinfluenced by context and, in particular, institutional arrangements. Inanalysing the data we note particular areas of interest from the pointof view of SMEs and social capital as being: formal engagement,networking within sectors, networking across sectors, volunteerism andgiving to charity, and finally a focus on why people engage. We concludethat there is a considerable amount of further research needed on socialcapital, SME's and business ethics.     

Trust and SME attitudes towards equity financing across Europe

The decision by a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) to take on equity requires trust, due to reliance on the good intentions of the parties involved. Drawing on a social capital perspective, we argue that national interpersonal and institutional trust positively influences SME attitudes towards equity financing. We also hypothesize a substitution effect between interpersonal and institutional trust. Through a large survey of European SMEs in 26 countries, we confirm the presence of these direct and interaction effects. By making explicit the link between trust and attitudes to equity financing we extend the theory on institutional drivers of SME financing.     

A Panel Study of Firm Growth among SMEs in Networks

An underlying assumption in SME literature, as well as among policymakers, is that networks are good per se especially for SMEs. Through accessing and utilising external resources in the network, the SME can overcome some of the assumed disadvantages of limited size. Thus networking is assumed to enhance small firm performance and thereby small firm growth. This article investigates this assumption. Analysis of panel data ascertains that a substantial number of SMEs are actively networking and that the level of networking has been maintained over a five-year period. In spite of this there is no evidence of associated short-term benefits such as growth in employment or growth in total sales resulting from the networking activities. The analyses suggest, however, that networking is associated with high growth in the geographic extension of markets, which suggests that networking sustains long-term objectives of the firms.     

Application of human resource management's universal model: An examination of people versus institutions as barriers of internationalization for SMEs in a small developing country

Although the importance of people and institutions has been highlighted in multinational enterprise studies, the association between people, institutions, and the internationalization of small to medium‐sized enterprise (SMEs) is an underexplored issue from the context of a small developing country. We examine theories subsumed under the Universal Model of human resource management (HRM) onto SMEs to study the hypothesized people and institutionally orientated barriers posed to SMEs’ internationalization. Using quantitative analysis, the impacts of the barriers on internationalization are highlighted with particular attention to employer attractiveness. Following extant literature review, this study has used primary data collected through questionnaires from 212 Bangladeshi SMEs. We developed and validated the partial least square‐based structural equation model (PLS‐SEM) to assess the impacts and successfully framed people versus institutional barriers as a second‐order hierarchical reflective model, which has not been done previously. Given their marginal significance over institutions, people‐oriented cultural barriers should be included as an extension of the Universal Model to study SME internationalization.     

How Do European SME Owner–Managers Make Sense of ‘Stakeholder Management’?: Insights from a Cross-National Study

The vast majority of empirical research on stakeholder management has traditionally focused on multinational corporations. Only in recent years, scholars have begun to pay attention to the stakeholder management concept in relation to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The few existing studies in this area, however, discuss SMEs as a context free category or remain focused on single country analysis. This cross-national empirical research investigates SME owner?Cmanagers?? perceptions of stakeholder management in six European countries. The comparative analysis is followed by a discussion of how institutional, cultural and linguistic contexts can influence owner?Cmanagers?? sensemaking of stakeholder management. Our study questions the universality of specific management terms and proposes that more attention should be paid to the institutional, cultural and linguistic environments that shape economic activity in different parts of Europe.     

Formal business networking and SME growth

This paper provides new empirical evidence on the impact of formal business networking on small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) growth. Using a large, unbalanced panel data set of Flemish SMEs over the period 1992–2008, we examine whether participation in a government-supported program aimed at providing small business managers with structured formal networking contacts is associated with SME growth. Our results suggest that formal business networking is significantly positively correlated with net asset and added value growth.     

Investigating CSR communication in SMEs: a case study among Danish middle managers

This paper seeks to analyse small‐ and medium‐sized enterprise (SME) managers' representations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and CSR communication in a corporate communication perspective. The basic question is: how strategic is CSR communication in SMEs? Corporate communication and CSR theories are used to establish an ideal typology of CSR concepts informing an analysis of qualitative data in the form of interviews with three middle managers in two Danish SMEs. A CSR communication model published earlier by the authors is challenged from a SME perspective. Results from an Internet‐based questionnaire survey of 1071 SMEs pave the way for the analysis. Our analysis shows that SME managers clearly have an inside‐out approach to CSR, with a strong emphasis on the internal (corporate culture) dimension. However, SMEs and/or SME managers tend not to communicate externally about the CSR activities of the company. Based on these findings, the paper argues that CSR communication in SMEs is challenged by the global economy and is under revision. The contribution of the paper is to provide an insight into SMEs' present stage in relation to a possible future approach to strategic CSR communication. The paper also reminds us that SMEs have no interest in turning their local and authentic practice into a forced marketing and branding exercise, leaving them with an artificial picture of who they are and strive to be in the future. They should keep on acting locally but force themselves to think globally.     

The Dynamics of Listed SMEs in China

We examine the dynamics of Chinese listed SMEs with respect to their post-market viability and growth after going public. The Kaplan–Meier estimation shows that SMEs are more likely to transition to a non-viable state than large firms. Further examination using the Cox model and the random effects model shows that SME dynamics are shaped by heterogeneous firm and industry characteristics, as well as the underlying financial and institutional environments. SME viability is distinguished by its ability to grow through learning along with age, aided by lower business risk, more focused business, easier access to equity finance, and less exposure to competition in remote regions. SME growth is constrained by a dispersed ownership structure, insufficient infrastructure to protect firms which are active in R&D, and the limited financing role of equity markets. The study also reveals that government initiatives in support of strategic development in the service industries and in the coastal regions are of importance in spurring SME growth.     

The evolving role of organisational and personal networks in international market venturing

In a study of 1304 Australian manufacturing industry SMEs, we investigate the relationships among networking (i.e., inter-personal and inter-organisational networks), international market venturing (i.e., export intensity), and family ownership. We find evidence that (1) inter-personal networking and inter-organisational networking positively influence SME international market venturing, but this relationship is contingent on a time lag effect, and (2) family ownership negatively moderates the effect of inter-organisational networking on international market venturing. Implications for managerial practice and public policy are discussed.     

Opportunism in the R&D alliances of SMES: The roles of the institutional environment and SME size

SME leaders with R&D alliances face significant challenges in balancing the need for resource acquisition in the innovation process and the potential for opportunistic behavior by alliance partners. This study, utilizing a sample of 456 SMEs from eight countries, examines how the resource capacity of the SME and the institutional environment are related to the perceptions that owners and managers have about the opportunistic behavior of alliance partners. The results suggest that firm size moderates the relationship between the technological munificence and the predominant culture of the domestic market of the SME and concerns about the opportunistic behavior of an SME alliance partner.     

Small and Medium Enterprises in Korea: Achievements,Constraints and Policy Issues

This paper provides an overview of the evolution of the small and medium enterprise sector in Korea during the past quarter century. It shows how the industrial structure of Korea has changed dramatically over this period reflecting much greater shares in employment and value added by SMEs. It reviews the evidence on SME dynamism showing that SMEs have contributed to the enormous transformations that have taken place in the Korean economy since 1975, especially with regard to exports, foreign investment and productivity performance. It discusses the role of subcontracting as well as that of government and non-governmental institutions in supporting SME development. Finally, it examines the link between variations in the economic importance of SMEs, as measured by their shares in employment, and aspects of growth and inequality to assess whether SMEs function as business cycle shock absorbers and inequality-reducing mechanisms.     

Small and Medium Enterprises Across the Globe

This paper analyzes the relationship between the relative size of the small and medium enterprise (SME) Sector and the business environment in 76 countries. The paper first describes a new and unique cross-country database that presents consistent and comparable information on the contribution of the SME sector to total employment in manufacturing and GDP across different countries. We then relate the importance of SMEs and the informal economy to indicators of different dimensions of the business environment. We find that several dimensions of the business environment, such as lower costs of entry and better credit information sharing are associated with a larger size of the SME sector, while higher exit costs are associated with a larger informal economy.      

Examining relational and resource influences on the performance of border region SMEs

At the U.S.–Mexico border, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are embedded in dual natured institutional and cultural contexts that share common functional and morphological characteristics. In this context firms are challenged by moving from one organizing template to another as embedded network influences constrain and enhance strategic outcomes. We develop and test a model of the impact of embeddedness components including social capital, personal relations and economic interaction on firm outcomes. Our results indicate that these components combine to influence the development of valuable resources and firm adaptation. We find that resources and adaptation significantly relate to SME performance.     

Export behaviour of SMEs in transition countries

Melitz’s dynamic model of export participation is the basis of our empirical specification that accounts for a wide range of internal and external factors affecting the export behaviour of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Transition Countries (TCs). Using firm-level data, our estimates highlight the particular importance of the human and technology-related factors to the export behaviour of SMEs in TCs. Other important factors for SME exporting activities are productivity-enhancing spillovers from industry—especially vertical—linkages, firm size, ownership type, type of activity, the availability of external finance, networking through business associations, and market share. In addition, significant period and country differences are identified. This paper contributes to the transition literature by filling an important gap in the understanding of the SME internationalisation process and by identifying a comprehensive set of variables to explain firms’ export behaviour in TCs.     

The Moderating Role of Trust in SME Owner/Managers' Decision-Making about Collaboration

This paper analyzes the impact of trust and trust agents on small to medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) ability to derive benefits from it. The findings suggest that trust is a significant factor moderating the way SME owners/managers perceive the potential benefits of networks. These findings support earlier research that posited that networking provides an avenue for SME owners/managers to learn about potential business opportunities. However, Australian owner/managers that belong to networks do not demonstrate behavior and practices typical of either explorative or exploitative networks. Instead, the findings suggest that in addition to the typical networks, a third type of network should be added to the literature—embryo-explorative networks. Such networks describe SMEs owners/managers who attend network meetings and report on what they learn about new opportunities from the networks; however, they do not tend to engage in typical collaborative activities (such as joint marketing venture) as described in the networking literature. Embryo-explorative networks are defined as those that have yet to develop into the explorative networks—probably because there has been insufficient time to build trusting relationships required to foster collaborative ventures that involve some risks.     

The adoption of human capital services by small and medium enterprises: A diffusion of innovation perspective

While lack of scale economies have traditionally limited the use of human capital programs among small and medium enterprises (SMEs), outsourcing models have recently emerged to provide cost-effective access to these programs. Drawing on the diffusion of innovation literature, we apply the rational accounts model and institutional theory to examine why SMEs differ in their willingness to use newly available human capital programs. We specifically examine the impact of SME size on the adoption of human capital innovations. Using survey and archival data from over 400 SMEs, we found broad support for the integrated approach we propose.