A Survey on Export Barriers Faced by Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Iran

摘要

Many governments have in place measures aimed at stimulating many of their Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to get involved in exporting. SMEs with an export potential face significant obstacles in gaining international competitiveness. This study is concerned with an empirical investigation that explores the barriers that Iranian SMEs faced in when engaging in international business and compared these barriers with exporter and non-exporter SMEs. In this study barriers are separated in two basic categories- internal and external.The data was gathered from a survey of 76(44 exporters and 32 non-exporters) fruits and vegetables SMEs at Tehran Province in Iran. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 20) were used to analyze the data with the aim of assessing which of the barriers have major roles in exporter and non-exporter SMEs. The result of the survey shows that in exporter SMEs internal and external barriers are almost equal but internal barriers are more influential than external barriers in non-exporter SMEs. Findings show that exporters and non-exporters largely differ in their views of the internal barriers to export but there were little differences between exporters and non-exporters in respected of external barriers.