Is propensity to export among firms in emerging economies driven by the desire to conquer the international market, or in an attempt to circumvent domestic institutional barriers? New research by scientists from the Department of Economics and Business at the University of Dubrovnik, created in collaboration with Croatian and foreign partners With a little help from my friends: Institutional obstacles, networking, and SME exporting in emerging European and Asian economies , provides answers to this question.

By analyzing a sample of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from 12 countries in Central Asia, the Middle East, and Southeast Europe, the authors investigate the impact of the perception of the local institutional framework and the propensity for networking on the propensity for export. The results show that in Central Asia, networking facilitates the export of SMEs in situations where institutions are not perceived as barriers. In Southeast Europe, SMEs use export, supported by networking, as a strategy to avoid local institutional challenges. In the Middle East, networking and institutional barriers increase SMEs’ propensity for export, while in all three regions, acquiring international and technological knowledge through networking serves as an incentive for export.

The study, published in the “International Business Review”, journal indexed in the first quartile (Q1) of the WoS database with an impact factor of 8.7, is the work of Prof. Dr. Sc. Nebojša Stojčić (Department of Economics and Business at the University of Dubrovnik), Prof. Dr. Sc. Marina Dabić (Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Zagreb and Department of Economics and Business at the University of Dubrovnik), and Prof. Dr. Sc. Martina Musteen (Fowler College of Business, San Diego State University).

The work is available in open access for 50 days via the following link:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593124000052?dgcid=author