Smallness and Newness as Export Barriers: A Configurational Approach to SMEs in Emerging Countries

Abstract

This study investigates firm-specific export barriers for SMEs in an emerging country, Russia. Instead of isolating the liabilities of newness and smallness as individual conditions that could prevent companies from exporting, we examine conjunctural causation, that is, the complementary factors that cause newness or smallness to become export barriers, and the presence of equifinality, that is, the existence of multiple export barrier configurations that could include smallness or newness in different ways. We took an inductive, theory-building approach based on set theory, applying a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to a unique cross-section dataset of privately-owned Russian SMEs in the manufacturing industry in 2013. Our findings first suggest that SMEs that do not export are not necessarily small or young. Also, the liabilities of smallness and newness do not need to occur together. To prevent SMEs from exporting, the liability of smallness or newness has to be associated with a lack of other internal resources and the absence of links to external resource providers in the local environment. External parties in the home country, such as local strategic alliances, business group affiliations, or state support, provide different types of resources and are therefore not perfect substitutes. This study provides a more nuanced and complex view of the liabilities of newness and smallness as export barriers for SMEs in the context of an emerging country.