Prepreke s kojima se mala i srednja preduzeća u regionu Zapadnog Balkana suočavaju u pristupanju lancima dobavljača - pristup zasnovan na binarnoj logističkoj regresiji

Abstract

The inclusion of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the supply chains is broadly used to leverage the internationalisation of operations of the companies. SMEs in the Western Balkans make up for a vast majority of the companies and tend to be better integrated into the EU and global market. The supply chains enable SMEs to raise their innovativeness and performance. However, large corporations also find mutual benefits in the integration of SMEs into their supply chains. Large supply chains have recently introduced a new approach towards the inclusion of SMEs as a part of their CSR and sustainability strategy. In this paper, we observe the state of play in accessing the supply chains in three non-EU Western Balkan countries, namely Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, as well as in Croatia as the only EU member state from the observed region. It seems that, regardless of the current status of the EU accession process, the observed SMEs are facing the same challenges in accessing the supply chains. Therefore, our research has two goals: 1) to determine whether and in what way the perception of the importance of different barriers affects inclusion in the supply chains, and 2) to determine whether the different-sized companies perceive differently the importance of individual barriers to inclusion in the supply chains. The results have shown that there are no significant differences in the perception of the importance of barriers to inclusion in the supply chains between companies of different sizes. Also, the length of receivables collection period and inadequate and incomplete information on the requirements for participation negatively affect the inclusion of SMEs in the supply chains.