Reconfiguring FDI dependency: SMEs as emerging stakeholders in an advanced peripheral export-led growth model

Abstract

Political economy scholarship on Eastern European countries identifies their export-led growth models as dependent on foreign direct investors (FDI). This paper argues that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are another important cohort of exporters for at least some of these countries. We attribute the success of exporting SMEs to the rise of new technologies and production processes, which have allowed economic agents from peripheral countries to engage with global value chains and international business-to-business trade directly, rather than via FDI. We empirically draw on an in-depth case study of Serbia, combining macroeconomic analysis and 145 interviews with exporting SMEs. The country made a notable switch from consumption- to export-led growth in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, despite lagging in FDI attraction. To address this puzzle, we show that internationalization of SMEs became an additional driver of the country’s exports. Then examining how these exporters have internationalized, we find that firm co-location is not a main source of knowledge exchange for them. Instead, they emphasize the importance of drawing upon translocal sources of knowledge exchange for international competitiveness. Using SME owners’ networks abroad, immigration experiences, clients from online platforms, and contacts from outsourcing opportunities has provided them with the knowledge needed to become innovative, and to repurpose the old socialist industrial resources they had at their disposal. Since exporting SMEs and their multi-level agency is an empirically under-researched phenomenon in the region, future studies on peripheral export-led growth models should explore economic and political implications of this growth coalition further.