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The nature of international markets and the challenges with respect to the competitiveness of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) makes it imperative to examine government support. This study aims to assess the role and effectiveness of government and the export promotion agencies in supporting exports by non-traditional horticultural SMEs in Ghana.

The study used a qualitative research design, which involved semi-structured interviews with senior managers of six export facilitating institutions to gain an understanding of the services offered to SMEs with respect to exports of non-traditional horticultural products.

The findings reveal inadequate cost-efficient sources of non-traditional horticultural export financing for SMEs. This is a hindrance to the international competitiveness of exporting SMEs in developing countries such as Ghana. In addition, effective and coordinated support from export promotion agencies was found to be critical.

The study highlights the importance of government’s role in policymaking and implementation of export-led programmes for horticultural exporting firms in Ghana. Despite their strategic importance, this area of research has not attracted the attention of researchers, with little or no information on the horticultural international competitiveness of non-traditional horticultural products.

The digital divide is supposed to place disadvantaged economies like Ghana in a position where using information and communication technology for development might not be an immediate reality. The purpose of this current study is to argue that the adoption of e‐business practices has benefit for small Ghanaian exporters' organizational improvement, and begin a first‐level investigation in that regard.

This study was exploratory and focused on a sample of active, non‐traditional exporters in Accra. This sample represented the best typology of small export firms in Ghana that had been regular exporters from 2000‐2004. In all, 60 firms responded to questionnaires on e‐business and exporting. Analysis of the data was mainly by means of descriptive statistics.

One‐way ANOVA analysis revealed that the export firm internationalization (measured by export intensity) has no bearing on the level of e‐business involvement or perceptions of the strategic value of e‐business. However, export firms who were more involved in e‐business had a higher perception of the usefulness of e‐business to their export operation. One‐way ANOVA analysis also revealed that for the export firms involved in some e‐business activity, the more internationalized they were, the more importance they attached to e‐business as providing some sort of organizational improvement leverage.

Given the exploratory nature of this study, more research is needed to study internal and external barriers to e‐business adoption by these firms, as well as the relationship between e‐business adoption and performance.

One of the first e‐business studies focusing on export firms on the disadvantaged end of the digital divide.

This paper aims to empirically investigate how small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have engaged with international network partners during COVID-19 and how the crisis has changed network relationships and resilience depending on pre-COVID relationship strength and, secondarily, on opportunity outlook in a market.

This paper draws on 14 qualitative interviews with managers of New Zealand SMEs from diverse industries and four with industry experts. Rather than generalization, the aim of this exploratory paper is to identify contingency factors, which, under duress, strengthen or break business relationships.

Four main patterns emerge from the data, with respect to how SMEs engaged with network partners depending on the nature of their prepandemic relationships and the extent to which their markets had been affected by the pandemic. During crisis, weak ties either break or remain weak, forcing firms to create new, potentially opportunistic, relationships. Strong ties increase resilience, even under a negative outlook, as network partners support each other, including through the development of new ties. Strong ties can also accelerate business model transformation.

Future large-scale research is needed to test the generalizability of the authors’ findings.

The findings of this paper indicate lessons for business continuation management and future preparedness for major disruptions. Specific insights may help stimulate managerial action to accelerate contingency planning and policy to support SMEs.

This paper is an early study on how weak and strong ties influence SME resilience during crisis.

Despite several contributions to greenhouse gas emission and carbon footprint reduction, the literature lacks empirical insights into the business impact of climate risks, when they materialize, and techniques to manage them. This study aims to devise a model delving into critical climate risks and the role of consortia and social capital to mitigate these risks.

A mixed-methods approach was used, including qualitative and quantitative data from small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in an Australian agrifood supply chain (AFSC).

The qualitative analysis uncovers four critical climate risks and a repertoire of relational, structural, and cognitive social capital accrued by SMEs of AFSC through consortia. The quantitative analysis corroborates that the SMEs that accumulate higher social capital through active engagement within consortia are able to respond more effectively to climate risks than to others. The authors, therefore, find that climate risk mitigation in SMEs is the function of both association (consortia) membership and the accrual of higher social capital through active involvement and collaboration within networks.

This is the first study in using a moderated-moderation model that simultaneously investigates the business impact of climate risks and how the moderating impact of consortia (a primary moderator) is further moderated by social capital (a secondary moderator) in explaining SMEs performance. The paper addresses the lack of adequate empirical research, particularly mixed-methods, in supply chain risk management literature.

The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding and knowledge of the impact of globalisation on African small and medium enterprise (SME) development. The contribution of SMEs to manufacturing industrialisation can be viewed in the context of the changing setting of globalisation. Globalisation is a description as well as a prescription. It can be broadly defined as closer economic integration as a result of rapid advances in technology, growth of world trade and competition, and policy changes towards economic liberalisation. Globalisation can also pose a challenge on how SMEs in Africa should brace themselves to respond to – and take advantages of – the changes, and carve an appropriate position in the global competitive economy.

The paper reviews and synthesises the eclectic literature and also draws from the experiences of both developed and developing economies.

The evidence from the literature points to several stumbling blocks that prevent African manufacturing SMEs from participating successfully in the global economy. These include problems with exports, technology, competitiveness and inter-firm linkages as well as barriers in the institutional and policy environments.

The paper will be useful to businesses, researchers, policy makers, civil society and others interested in understanding the impact of globalisation on manufacturing SME development.

Although there is great deal of research on export assistance programmes in developed countries, studies on developing countries in Africa has received scant attention in the literature. Lack of detailed information in many developing African countries makes it difficult to assess the effect of export promotion programmes (EPPs) on the firm’s export performance in foreign markets. The purpose of this paper is to explore entrepreneurial development in the value-added export sector of Ghana and screen EPPs provided by public policy makers to examine the impact of these programmes on export performance of Ghanaian firms in foreign markets.

A conceptual/exploratory paper is developed with discussion.

The paper suggests that the ability of exporters to enhance their performance is driven by the usage of outside market access, export development/training and information related export assistance programmes offered by public policy makers. Utilisation of EPPs builds experiential knowledge which serves as a source of competitive advantage for exporters to implement effective marketing mix strategies to enhance performance.

The study underscores the specific EPPs export managers can utilise to enhance performance and improve their international marketing strategy in foreign markets. Public policy makers need to work together with exporters to incorporate and develop programmes to suit the idiosyncrasies of foreign markets and boost the growth of value-added exports.

The study explores past literature to screen and evaluate the effect of EPPs and entrepreneurial development to boost export growth in Ghana – Sub-Sahara Africa.

Entrepreneurship is lauded as an engine of economic development and job creation, with SMEs often creating most of the new jobs in many countries. This paper identifies some important factors that contribute to the start‐up and success of new business ventures in Africa, emphasizing that while personality factors such individual drive and competency and availability of resources are important for the successful launch of a new business venture, effective government policy is also critical in promoting successful entrepreneurial initiatives. Survey data collected showed that most African entrepreneurs believe that they have the requisite passion, energy, and determination needed to start and manage new businesses. However, they are constrained by scarcity of adequate start‐up capital, stiff competition, lack of employees with the right skills, and difficulty in finding adequate facilities to start their business. Building on this research and earlier work, the paper discusses the crucial role that African governments can play to stimulate and nurture entrepreneurial endeavours. While the findings and recommendations in this paper are based on the study of Ethiopian and Ghanaian entrepreneurs, they have applicability in several African countries. The actual implementation of the proposed recommendations will of course need to be adapted to suit the special circumstances prevailing in each country.

The aim of this paper is to consider empirical evidence on the strategic behaviour of rural SMEs compared to urban SMEs in times of difficult economic conditions. The authors build the paper from a theoretical discussion that suggests that there will be distinctive differences in SMEs’ strategic behaviour across different settlement patterns, utilising resource‐based and opportunity‐based theoretical perspectives. This leads to three research questions which are concerned with three elements when comparing urban and rural SMEs; their characteristics, their performance and their strategic behaviours. The paper argues that the role and strategic behaviour of SMEs in the literature has been neglected.

For this study, the paper is able to draw upon a data set of 1,411 SMEs from an annual survey of New Zealand's SMEs. This is a national survey of SMEs and the paper has analysed the data to draw out distinctive differences with firms located in different urban or rural locations.

The paper has shown that SMEs in independent urban areas/small town settlements have distinctive characteristics, performance and strategic behaviour. The important findings are that geographical location matters; that impacts of changing economic conditions cannot be assumed to be homogenous across economies and that SMEs across different settlement patterns will adopt different strategic response and behaviours.

The paper provides an original contribution to knowledge through the following: a primary focus on the comparison of urban and rural SMEs’ strategic behaviour in challenging and turbulent economic conditions, providing for the first time empirical evidence on the sustainability of rural SMEs in recessionary times compared to urban firms across three different locational settlement patterns; urban, independent urban and rural.

This paper aims to examine Bangladesh's overall economy with special focus on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis, choosing right foreign direct investment (FDI) strategy, remittance inflow, lessons from South East Asian nations, risk factors and aftermath.

Phenomenological research has raised awareness and increased insight into Bangladesh's overall strength, weakness, opportunity and threat in terms of her current position in world economy. The approach is based on observation of the business environment, online research, a close watch on Bangladesh's economy, analysis of newspapers, books, brainstorming with co‐researchers for five years and 30 years of living and working experience in developing countries.

The research has found that Bangladesh is going to encounter series of economic hurdles in near future. A SWOT analysis of Bangladesh has uncovered her overall strength, weakness, opportunity and threat in terms of her current position in world economy. Despite some strengths and opportunities, Bangladesh has lots of weaknesses and threats that could seriously undermine nation's development process at any time. A holistic and concerted effort is much sought after to address those problems while capitalising on strengths and opportunities. Side by side, Bangladesh should try her level best to attract quality FDI. However, remittance inflow plays very crucial role in Bangladesh's economy. But deplorably, since it is almost impossible to follow the successful model of South East Asian nations, Bangladesh does not have any sure success formula of any country in hand to follow. In fact, many less successful countries will have to struggle for long uncertain period. And sadly, Bangladesh falls into that category indeed. In fact, Bangladesh's economy has been on an inherently unstable path that can only end in tears. But remittance inflow will act as lifeblood for Bangladesh's economy and it will slow down the total apocalyptic process indeed. However, considering the totality, Bangladesh must have to face several critical challenges at once even before embarking on the track of vision 2020! Truly, nightmare is just on!

This paper offers a holistic view that would guide a reader to identify key challenges of a typical least developed country.