Many firm level studies rely on readily available databases as COMPUSTAT, based on published balance sheets. While bigger firms are quite reliable described in this data set, small and medium sized firms (SMEs) are not covered, bearing the danger that the conclusions might be biased. To include...

If large companies buy small dynamic enterprises, and move them to the headquarters' location or elsewhere, the process could suppress regional, or dependent, economy income and productivity. We investigate this hypothesis by analysing around 2 million observations of the UK enterprise- level...

The cooperation between established SMEs and innovative start-ups offers considerable opportunities for the respective companies and the German economy. New business models can be adopted, and innovative products can be jointly developed. In particular, the digitalisation of the 'German...

This paper analyzes the main drivers of external competitiveness in times of crisis for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). We focus on the Italian experience in the midst of the financial and sovereign-debt crisis, and present robust evidence based on a comprehensive survey of Italian...

The research on women entrepreneurship has mainly studied these topics: i) the characteristics and motivations (Brush and Hisrich, 1991; Pablo-Martí et al., 2014), ii) the strategic choice (Verheul et al., 2008), iii) the role of leadership (Schwartz, 1976; Justo et al. 2006)), iv) the entry barriers...

The paper discusses state, regulative framework, and recent developments in leveraging access to finance for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the Kyrgyz Republic through global value chain (GVC) examples in the Kyrgyz Republic. Access to finance in the Kyrgyz Republic is...

The present article links business takeovers to the literature on serial autocorrelation of growth rates. The aim of the study is to identify the effects of successions on the performance of small German firms by analysing the growth pathways over a period of eight years after business takeover....

A skilled and educated workforce can support the competitiveness of enterprises of all sizes. However, smaller firms may face greater challenges in developing human capital. We explore differences between smaller and larger firms in offering skills training and in hiring workers with more formal...

This paper focuses on a new concern in the small firm’s literature, namely what makes a small firm stay in business for a long time. It reflects a change in economic policy, away from an emphasis on volume of start-ups to an emphasis on quality of start-ups. The basic hypothesis is that...

The aim of this paper is to find which of two theories of capital structure - trade-off theory or pecking order theory - best explains the capital structure decision of non-state firms during the post-transition process in Viet Nam. We also investigate the effect of human capital, institutional...