Title: Can diplomacy facilitate SMEs in their efforts to export?

Authors: Gorazd Justinek

Addresses: International School for Social and Business Studies, Mariborska cesta 7, 3000 Celje, Slovenia

Abstract: Slovenia represents one of the smallest European Union member states in regard of population and at the same time also one of the most open economies in EU in regard of foreign trade/GDP ratio. In Slovenia, more than 99% of all business entities are SMEs, as defined by European Commission. Since the beginning of the financial and economic crisis in Slovenia, starting in the last quarter of the year 2008, there have been talks about diplomacy, as one of the key governmental tools for restoring the economic growth and getting the country out of recession. In the paper we present the possible help of diplomacy for SMEs through export support and test its performance 'on the spot', by measuring export support performance parameters (responsiveness and information quality).

Keywords: diplomacy; small and medium-sized enterprises; exporting SMEs; financial crisis; Slovenia; export support performance; responsiveness; information quality; exports.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGSB.2012.049272

International Journal of Globalisation and Small Business, 2012 Vol.4 No.3/4, pp.308 - 323

Received: 15 Nov 2011
Accepted: 29 Mar 2012

Published online: 30 Aug 2014 *

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