Title: Firm competencies and exports among SMEs: the critical role of collaborations

Authors: Constantina Kottaridi; Spyros Lioukas

Addresses: Department of Economics, University of Piraeus, Karaoli & Dimitriou 80, 185 34 Piraeus, Greece ' Department of Management Science and Technology, Athens University of Economics and Business, Patission 76, 104 34 Athens, Greece

Abstract: This paper examines the export behaviour of Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), shifting the interest to firm competencies and the role of finance. It builds on the Resource-Based View (RBV) framework to highlight marketing and technological competencies in the presence of financial constraints in order to explore in greater depth the export performance of SMEs. The results show the superiority of marketing competencies related to collaborations both domestically and - especially - abroad. Differentiations between smaller and larger SMEs are investigated. Empirical evidence suggests that SMEs face high sunk costs in order to internationalise, particularly among smaller SMEs. Implications are discussed.

Keywords: SMEs; competencies; collaborations; RBV.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2017.087568

European Journal of International Management, 2017 Vol.11 No.6, pp.711 - 732

Received: 02 Mar 2016
Accepted: 31 Jan 2017

Published online: 19 Oct 2017 *

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