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The prevailing view in the existing literature is that open innovations (OI) increase the innovative performance of enterprises. The author examines whether the same OI practices are equally important for sole entrepreneurs, micro firms, small firms, medium-sized and large enterprises in introducing radical innovations and which set of OI practices is best for a firm, given the firm's size.

In this study probit models were used on a sample of 915 innovative Serbian enterprises.

OI is important for all enterprises introducing radical innovations. However, not all OI practices are equally effective in each enterprise size group. The set of OI practices leading to radical innovations depends on the firm size. Cooperation with others is not important for sole entrepreneurs and micro and large companies in introducing radical innovations. Still, cooperation's role is predominant in small and medium-sized enterprises. Also, certain OI practices are important for all enterprises, whilst others do not contribute to radical innovations, regardless of the firm size.

Owners/managers can save considerably by avoiding the allocation of resources to OI practices that result in little to no contribution to radical product commercialisation. At the macroeconomic level, these findings can help policymakers create adequate (tailor-made) public policies to achieve innovation in each specific group of firms.

This study demonstrates that not all OI practices are equally important for achieving radical production solutions in each group of enterprises.

This paper aims to review the literature extensively by analysing recent work and providing a guide for models, data sets and research findings.

This paper reviews the literature extensively by analysing recent work and providing a guide for models, data sets and research findings within the context of capital market imperfections. The authors further break down the literature into closer-in-nature categories for reader’s convenience and comprehension. Finally, the authors address gaps in the existing literature and propose government policies that can tone down the potential effect of credit rationing on employment.

This paper provides a map of the literature so as to help future researchers in the relevant literature and give a short insight of what has been explored so far.

This paper is original and is the result of a thorough review of an extensive literature.

This article analyzes the determinants of credit constraints and their effects on the productivity of micro-firms in Colombia.

An Endogenous Switching Regression Model (ESRM) is estimated to analyze credit constraint impact on economic performance.

The results show that owner characteristics such as age and gender decrease the likelihood of being constrained. Firms' characteristics, such as legal status, the formality of the employees, commercial property and savings, are important for reducing credit constraints.

This article discusses how formal credit restrictions harm the economic performance of Colombia's micro-firms. The results show that the productivity of the micro firms in Colombia could increase, on average, by U$ 825 USD when all types of restrictions are eliminated.

This study aims to examine the impact of regulatory, normative and cultural cognitive institutions and firm and individual factors on entrepreneurial behavior.

Using the quantitative research method, the authors collected data from 316 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Kosovo, a transition economy, through a cross-sectional research design. The authors performed exploratory factor analyses, correlation and regression analyses on the data using SPSS 26 and STATA software.

The research findings indicate that, within transition economies, normative and cultural-cognitive institutions have a positive impact on entrepreneurial behaviors. The authors could not determine the effect of regulatory institutions on entrepreneurial behavior. The authors also discovered that young firms are more inclined toward entrepreneurial behavior than older firms, and micro firms display a stronger entrepreneurial behavior than small firms. Furthermore, family businesses showed a greater tendency for entrepreneurial behavior than nonfamily firms. Interestingly, when the rational decision-making interacts with regulatory institutions, the effect on entrepreneurial behavior is negative.

This study employed a cross-sectional approach to investigate the influence of macro, meso, and micro-level factors on entrepreneurial behavior within a transitioning community across three industries. Future studies could replicate these findings within comparable institutional contexts, employing longitudinal studies that include additional variables beyond those considered in our present study.

Considering the importance of MSMEs for a country’s economic and sustainable development, the authors provide some policy implications. The authors recommend managers carefully evaluate the information gathered while they decide and also increase their capabilities concerning digitalization, which is crucial for their firm’s survival, growth and sustainable competitive advantage.

This paper contributes to the literature and shows and analyses entrepreneurial behavior at institutional (macro), firm-level factors (meso) and managers' rational decision-making (micro), providing evidence from a transition community.

This analysis examines the relationship between corruption and firm productivity in Vietnam.

The authors apply the system generalized method of moments estimation approach on a panel dataset constructed from comprehensive enterprise surveys covering all the sectors over the 2011–2020 period.

The results confirm a non-linear relationship between corruption and firm productivity. Where corruption is severe, leaving corruption alone tends to benefit firm productivity because efforts to control corruption are likely to cause greater delays. In less corrupt provinces, corruption appears to harm firm productivity while efforts to control corruption provide significant productivity gains. This U-shaped relationship is confirmed for small firms and those in the private sector sub-samples. Intriguingly, this study reveals that the U-shaped relationship does not apply to micro, medium, large firms, state-owned firms and foreign-invested firms because corruption is found to have no significant impact on productivity among these sub-samples. Changes in regulations after 2014 toward promoting a transparent business environment are shown to foster the positive impact of lowering corruption on firm productivity.

This study suggests that lowering corruption is beneficial for firm productivity at the micro level. However, where corruption is severe, monitoring corruption alone is likely to cause adverse effects on productivity due to increased bureaucratic delays. Institutional reforms might play an important role in leveraging the effects of lowering corruption on productivity in highly corrupt areas.

This paper sheds new light on the relationship between corruption and firm productivity in the broad existing literature and especially in the limited number of studies for Vietnam.

This study investigates the optimum size for manufacturing firms and the impact of subcontracting on firms' likelihood of achieving their optimal scale in Vietnam.

Using data from the enterprise census in 2017 and 2021, the paper first estimates the production function to identify the optimum firm size for manufacturing firms and then, applies the logit model to investigate factors associated with the optimal firm size.

The study reveals that medium-sized firms exhibit the highest level of productivity. Nevertheless, a consistent trend emerges, indicating that nearly 90% of manufacturing firms in Vietnam operated below their optimal scale in both 2017 and 2021. An analysis of the impact of subcontracting on firms' likelihood to achieve their optimal scale emphasizes its crucial role, especially for foreign firms, exerting an influence nearly five times greater than that of the judiciary system.

The paper's findings offer crucial policy implications, suggesting that initiatives aimed at enhancing the overall productivity of the manufacturing sector should prioritise facilitating contract arrangements to encourage firms to reach their optimal size. These insights are also valuable for other countries with comparable firm size distributions.

This paper provides the first empirical evidence on the relationship between firm size and productivity as well as the role of subcontracting in firms' ability to reach their optimal scale in a country with a right-skewed distribution of firm sizes.

The purpose here is to show how the “shadow” economy has grown in scale and impetus in recent years, though even before modern times it has been present (e.g. the City of London, Shaxson, 2011) since at least the middle ages. The reasons for this have become complicated, but we can identify some “deep structures” that are common. Firstly, “globalisation” made it easier for multinationals to escape national regulatory regimes. Secondly, one of the ways neoliberal trading regulations allowed such actors to augment their assets was by means of what they initially called “transfer-pricing” but which now is officially known as “profit shifting” through tax havens. Thirdly, the growth in international trade in legal and illegal ways caused money laundering – even by otherwise respectable banks – to grow across borders. Conversely, from the supply-side, tax haven status was increasingly accessed by jurisdictions that sought to achieve economic growth by supplying tax haven services, both Delaware and Ireland as exemplars of a “developmental” fiscal policy.

This paper adopts a “pattern recognition” design, an approach that is abductive, meaning interpretive, as shown in the observation that explanation can be valid or reliable without direct observation. This is shown in the indirect observation that “rain fell because the terrace has puddles” or “ancient glaciers once carved this valley”.

Reviewing the European Union’s (EU) list of non-co-operating jurisdictions in support of the OECD’s review of base erosion and profit-shifting activity, Collin concluded the EU’s listing “moved the needle” somewhat but was only a modest success. This is because of its reluctance to sanction its own members or large economies like the USA. Data on foreign direct investment and offshore banking assets suggest listed jurisdictions did not suffer notably from being named and shamed. In all cases studied, this contribution found legally damaging, fraudulent, conflict of interest and corrupt practice activities everywhere.

The originality is found in three spheres. Firstly, the pattern recognition method was vindicated in yielding hard to research results. Secondly, the “assemblage-thirdspace” theory was found advantageous in demonstrating the uneven geography of tax haven clusters and their common history in turbocharging economic development. Finally, the empirics showed the ruses executed by cluster members in tax havens to circumvent the law from global management consultancies to micro-firms consisting of tax lawyers and other experts interacting in knowledge supply chains of dubious morality.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the marketing and communication activities carried out by small management consulting firms and how they relate to customers.

After the framing of the literature on the subject, the study is based on the results of a survey carried out through an online questionnaire. The sample under investigation is represented by 914 small consulting firms located in central Italy.

Results show that half of the sample carried out marketing and communication activities, mainly through the website and social media, while others participating in events as speakers at conferences. It also emerges that management consulting firms carry out activities aimed at maintaining relationship with customers even if they do not invest time in market research in order to find potential and new clients.

The study suggests that management consulting firms should adopt a systematic and strategic approach to communication and should develop a complete and integrated digital communication strategy, as well as to rethink the consulting business model.

There are no previous studies that provide insight into the everyday practice of marketing and communication of small management consulting services in today's dynamic and changing economic environment.

The purpose of this study is to examine various key aspects associated with entrepreneurs’ behaviour following a long-term crisis. Specifically, the study compares the perceptions of female and male entrepreneurs operating in Cyprus and Greece concerning success factors and firm performance in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Conceptually, the study considers the organisational adaptation literature (Miles and Snow’s typology).

The views of female and male micro and small firm owners-managers operating in Greece and Cyprus, a total of 406, were gathered through a questionnaire. To analyse the quantitative data, independent samples t-test and exploratory factor analysis were applied.

Participants’ responses reveal similar levels of perceived importance between genders regarding adaptive measures and strategies to confront a long-term crisis, as well as perceived firm performance. Nevertheless, exploratory factor analysis highlights differences in how male/female entrepreneurs perceive actions that, as in the case of financial management, can safeguard the immediate outlook of the firm.

While scholarly discourses on gender and entrepreneurship abound, important knowledge gaps still exist, for instance, in entrepreneurs’ problem-solving strategies adopted by female and male entrepreneurs following crises. In addressing this scholarly gap cross-culturally, that is, drawing on cross-national data (Cyprus and Greece); the present study makes an important contribution. Empirically, the study ascertains similar entrepreneurial behavioural characteristics between female-male entrepreneurs. Theoretically, the study validates Miles and Snow’s typology and develops a theoretical framework linking the typology and dimensions emerging from the empirical findings.

This study aims to determine how and through what mechanisms the outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) promotion effect of the Belt and Road initiative (BRI-OFDI) affects domestic investment. It is motivated by the context that China is fostering a new development pattern, as well as by the impetus from the Belt and Road initiative for the new pattern.

Drawing on data of Chinese-listed companies, this study uses a difference-in-difference method to explore the effect of the BRI-OFDI on domestic investment and a mediation model to illustrate the mechanisms.

The BRI-OFDI has a significantly positive effect on domestic investment, meaning that the Belt and Road initiative's OFDI promotion effect crowds in domestic investment. The results are heterogeneous: the crowding-in effect mainly exists in non-state-owned and technology-intensive enterprises, while a crowding-out effect is seen in state-owned and labor-intensive enterprises. The easing of corporate financing constraints and the expansion of market demand are two important mechanisms.

This study uses the Belt and Road initiative as an exogenous shock to investigate the impact of the initiative-induced OFDI promotion effect on domestic investment. It addresses the potential endogeneity issue confronting the studies on the relationship between OFDI and domestic investment in the literature. The authors focus on the possible spillover effects of the Belt and Road initiative discussing the impact of the BRI-OFDI on domestic investment from the micro-firm perspective. It offers a new perspective to objectively assess the initiative's policy effect.