Study on the effect of size, age and other entrepreneurial characteristics on SMEs performance during the economic crisis. Evidence from Greece

• Κύριος συγγραφέας: Κανελλάκης, Νικόλαος
• Άλλοι συγγραφείς: Τζελέπης, Δημήτριος
• Μορφή: Thesis
• Γλώσσα: English
• Έκδοση: 2017
• Θέματα: SMEs; Firms’ growth; Economic crisis; Firms’ performance; Μικρομεσαίες επιχειρήσεις; Μεγέθυνση επιχειρήσεων; Οικονομική κρίση; Επίδοση επιχειρήσεων

Greek companies have received a big setback to their efficiency and profitability all these years of economic crisis, like all other sectors of the Greek economy. But what happened to SMEs, young businesses and entrepreneurship all these years? In this paper we try to see the efficiency of Greek SMEs and young businesses during the economic crisis, for the years 2008-2013. We will investigate the importance and the influence that size and age have on a firm’s efficiency and in addition we will examine if businesses with some more entrepreneurial characteristics would have a better growth rate during economic turmoil. We find, that the smaller size and younger firms had an advantage in terms of growth during financial turmoil than larger in size and age firms but only up to a point after which the larger companies had the advantage. Conversely, it was found that companies that have more entrepreneurial characteristics were affected negatively by the economic crisis. In conclusion, both the small size and young age can be an advantage for SMEs in times of financial turmoil and instead such periods can be detrimental to more entrepreneurial firms.