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Paper info: How do Small Firms Cope in the European Union?-The importance of intermediaries and political knowledge on business performance

Title


How do Small Firms Cope in the European Union?-The importance of intermediaries and political knowledge on business performance

Authors


Anna Bengtson
Uppsala University
Sweden
Anna Bengtson , Cecilia Pahlberg and Firouze Pourmand

Place of Publication


The paper was published at the 25th IMP-conference in Marseille, France in 2009.

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Abstract


 Small firms are embedded in a political environment. A large majority of these firms in the EU are small, and their importance for the economies (job creation, technological development and prosperity) is often highlightened by politicians and in media. The other side of the coin, i.e. EU´s impact on small firms and their business relationships is, however, much less researched. There is a vast amount of organisations that function as intermediaries between small firms and the EU. The aim of this paper is, by using a theoretical network framework, to further penetrate the question of firm interaction and the special role of intermediaries for small firms´ when gaining political knowledge and further, the outcome of such interaction, e.g. the perceived effect on business performance. The empirical study is based on survey data from 134 small firms in Sweden, carried out in 2008. We have in this paper developed 6 hypothesis and used PLS for statistical analysis. The results indicate that some intermediaries are more important than others and that political knowledge, specific or general, has diverse effects on business performance.