国际贸易外文翻译---中小企业出口成功的根源探究：公共服务的影响

Appendix：

International Business Review 13 (2004) 383–400

Sources of export success in small and medium-sized enterprises: the impact of public

programs

Roberto Alvarez E

Department of Economics, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile Abstract This paper analyzes differences in firm exporter performance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Traditionally, it is argued that these firms face several disadvantages for competing in international markets. Few studies, however, exploit the fact that successful exporters exist within this group. Using data for Chilean firms, we study various explanations for differences between sporadic and permanent exporters. Our results suggest that greater effort in international business, process innovation, and the utilization of export promotion programs contribute positively to export performance in SMEs. In addition, we find that some forms of intervention are better than others: trade shows and trade missions do not affect the probability of exporting permanently, but exporter committees show a positive and significant impact.

Key words: Export performance; Export promotion; Small- and

medium-sized enterprises

1 Introduction

International evidence suggests that firm size matters for exporter performance. Several reasons have been provided to explain why larger firms perform better in International markets. Advantages associated with scale economies and specialization, better access to financial resources in capital markets, and improved capabilities to take risks are among these reasons. Also, evidence in Roberts and Tybout (1997) and Bernard and Jensen (1999) regarding the existence of sunk costs to entering international markets implies that small- and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) face greater limitations than larger firms to be successful exporters.

There are, however, firms within the group of SMEs that have been able to compete successfully in international markets. Y et, few empirical studies exploit this fact. This paper contributes to the discussion of firm exporter performance in four ways. First, we compare exporter performance among firms of similar size. Second, focusing only on exporters, we distinguish between sporadic and permanent exporters. Third, we employ a detailed survey of 295 sporadic and permanent exporters. This survey collects information about firm activities not traditionally included in other empirical studies. Fourth, we study evidence in Chile, a country that has experienced a huge increase in export diversification over the last several decades. The Chilean experience is useful for other developing countries trying to improve the international competitiveness of SMEs.

There are two empirical facts that motivate this paper. First, the probability of exporting is lower for SMEs than it is for larger firms. This resembles evidence found in other national economies. In the Chilean manufacturing industry, for instance, only 14% of SMEs have exported goods over the period 1990–1996. However, more than 74% of large firms have exported goods over the same period. Second, a reduced number of firms are able to remain as exporters. Among all exporter firms, only about 20% have exported every year of the period. The percentage of successful exporters for SMEs, however, is even lower: only about a 7% can be classified as permanent exporters. Contrast this with large-sized firms, where successful exporters represent

more than 40% of the firms in this group (Table 1).

The main question we ask here is why some SMEs are more successful exporters than others firms of a similar size. In the next section, we explore various explanations through the use of special survey directed at sporadic and permanent exporter firms. In the third section, a Probit model is estimat ed to identify empirically the most important determinants of export performance. The fourth section concludes. Table 1

Source: Own calculation based on Nationwide Survey of Manufacturing Establishments (ENIA).

2 Possible explanations

In this section, we explore possible explanations for differences in firm exporter performance. The approach aims to establish if there are significant differences in firm activities that would explain why some SMEs are more successful than others. First, we present the data source. Second, we test for the existence of statistical differences over four aspects: (i) technological innovation, (ii) international business manage ment, (iii) manager’s perceptions about obstacles to exporter performance, and (iv) utilization of public instruments available to SMEs for enhancing productivity and technological capabilities, increasing exports, and improving access to capital markets.

2.2.1 Technological innovation

Technological innovation may affect the export status of a firm by increasing productivity (and reducing costs) and/or by developing new goods for international markets. This may be analyzed in the context of firms that compete in differentiated product markets. Firms may sell low-quality goods in domestic markets, but they must upgrade to technologies that produce high-quality goods if they wish to sell abroad then.

We test for differences in three types of innovative activities: product innovation, process innovation, and organizational innovation. The results are shown in Table 2, and suggest that there are differences between both groups of exporters. Though permanent exporters engage product innovation in greater intensity than do sporadic exporters, this difference is not significant. However, significant differences exist for process and organizational innovation. The results show that permanent exporters innovate more than sporadic exporters in outsourcing and the computer-based modernization of productive processes. With respect to the introduction of organizational innovation, permanent exporters are more innovative in terms of introducing re-engineering into administrative processes and for total quality development.

Table 2

Technological innovation

2.2.2. Effort in international business

Differences in export performance may be explained by different degrees of effort by internationalizing firms. These differences are attributable to firm heterogeneity in access to information and management capability, among other possibilities. Kumcu, Harcar, and Kumcu (1995) show that, for Turkish companies, manager motivation helps to explain awareness of export incentives. Moreover, Spence (2003) shows that the success of UK overseas trade missions is positively affected by manager language proficiency.

In the survey, managers were asked about the action intensity of several activities, such as strategic alliances with foreign and domestic firms, training of workers in export operations, and promotion of goods abroad. The results are shown in Table 3. The estimates suggest that permanent exporters are more active than sporadic exporters in only two activities: personnel training in exports operations and obtaining funds for working capital in activity-related exports.

2.2.

3. Manager perception regarding obstacles to exporting

One possible explanation for differences in exporter performance is that sporadic exporters face greater difficulties in their international operations. Some firms may have good export projects, for instance, but if they face credit access problems in the financial market, then it is more likely that they will leave international markets. In addition, some firms may exit due to protectionist barriers established in foreign markets. These kinds of obstacles have been divided into three types: internal to firms, internal to country, and external. Results are shown in Table 4.

Even the sign of the difference indicates that permanent exporters assign smaller importance to firm-internal obstacles; the difference between both groups of firms is not statistically significant. Significant differences regarding the evolution of the real exchange rate and difficulties in access to financial resources exist, however, for the case of country-internal obstacles. This implies that a lower and/or unstable real exchange rate more greatly affects sporadic exporters than permanent exporters. One interesting result is that the interactive variable between status and sectoris positive and significant. This reveals that in sectors of the economy without a co mparative advantage, real exchange fluctuations tend to be a more important obstacle for

sporadic exporters.

With regard to credit access, the evidence indicates that liquidity constraints are more relevant for sporadic exporters. This finding in and of itself, however, is not conclusive with respect to a causality relationship. One interpretation is that credit constraints limit the possibility to remain as an exporter. This is plausible for small firms that are traditionally more restricted than larger firms. An alternative interpretation is that capital markets associate greater business risk with sporadic exporters, and lower access to credit may be due to poor export performance in the past.

With respect to external obstacles, there are not important differences between permanent and sporadic exporters. Permanent exporters associate lower levels of incidence with almost every obstacle, especially for tariff and no-tariff barriers, but differences with sporadic exporters are not statistically significant. This implies that explanations about why some firms are not able to export permanently are not associated with the existence of trade barriers in foreign markets.

2.2.4. Utilization of public instruments

There are several public instruments that Chilean firms can use to enhance their productivity and international competitiveness. It can be argued that differences in export performance are associated with the fact that permanent exporter firms have used these instruments with greater intensity than have sporadic exporters.

The Chilean public instruments are classified into three groups. First, there are instruments designed to enhance productivity and technological capability in small firms. Second, there are export promotion instruments whose objective is to increase international competitiveness. Third, there are financial instruments established to improve credit access for small firms.

In Fig. 1, we show the results for differences in the utilization of these instruments by firm group. The evidence shows that permanent exporters have used every public instrument more intensively. The most used public instruments have been the export promotion instruments and those specifically administered by the National Export Promotion Agency (ProChile). In the case of export promotion, about 35% of permanent exporters have used this kind of public support. This percentage is only about 19% for sporadic exporters. With regard to ProChile instruments, firm participation has been 26.9% for permanent exporters, and 14.5% for sporadic exporters.

The evidence in the previous section suggests that there are significant

differences in the firm behavior according to exporter status. In this section, we study whether these factors do in fact explain the differences in exporter status. To do so, we define a dependent variable that takes the value 1 if the firm has been a permanent exporter over the period 1996–1999 and 0 if the firm has been a sporadic exporter. For the econometric estimation, the following Probit model is used:

There are two potential methodological problems associated with this approach. First, in our case, it may be argued that some of the explanatory variables are also affected by the firm’s export status. In fact, firms that export permanently may be not only more likely to carry out technological innovation, but also to put greater effort into international business. Our dataset is not detailed enough to explore this bi-causality phenomenon. Instead, firm panel data would illuminate the impact of export performance on firm behavior. Our approach, however, explores the impact of a firm’s decisions on export performance. This is consistent with related inter-national trade literature that suggests a positive relationship between exports and firm performance is better explained in an empirical sense by a self-selection phenomenon (i.e. better firms are able to export), and not by the effect of learning-by-exporting (i.e. the idea that exporters improve their performance by accessing

附录：

国际商业评论13期（2004）383-400

中小企业出口成功的根源探究：公共服务的影响

罗伯特-艾薇儿

智利圣地亚哥经济系

摘要

本文分析了中小企业中公司出口的不同点。普遍认为，这些中小企业在国际市场竞争中存在一些弱点。然而，也有研究表明，这些公司中也存在非常成功的，通过分析来自智利公司的数据，我们研究了小型和大型出口商之间的不同，研究结果显示，在国际商务中更多要做的就是良好的服务，过程的创新，以及在出口中积极地做好推广都会对中小企业的发展起到促进作用。另外，我们发现有些形式的干预比其他的要好：交易会和贸易代表团不会影响长久出口的可能性，但是，出口国委员会会起到积极地影响作用。

关键词：出口实绩；出口促进；中小企业

1.概述

国际贸易实际表明公司的规模会影响出口实绩，我们已经发现一些原因来解释为什么大型企业在国际市场更占优势。经济规模越大，专业化程度越高，更容易在资本市场获得财富，更能够提高其抵御风险的能力。并且，从来自罗伯特、波特、伯纳多和杰森的研究可以得出中小企业在走向成功出口商的道路上比大型企业面临更多的限制。

然而，一些实证证实，在中小企业中已经有些公司能够成功的在国际市场上进行竞争。本文从四个方面对出口公司进行分析。第一，比较相同规模公司的出口实绩；第二，仅对于出口公司，区别小型和大型专业化出口企业；第三，对295家出口商进行详细的调查，这个调查收集信息公司活动不是传统上包括在其他的实证研究。第四，我们对一个最近几年出口多样化大幅提升的国家智利进行研究取证，智利的发展对于世界其他发展中国家的中小企业提高国际竞争力具有积极地作用。

本文基于两个很明显的事实，首先，通过对其他国家经济现状的分析，得出出口可能性中小企业比大型企业低。例如，在智利的加工企业，在1990年到1996年期间，仅有14%的中小企业实现了产品出口。然而，在相同时期，74%的大型企业已经实现了出口。另外，出口商的数量正在持续减少。在这些出口公司中，仅有20%能够在这期间实现连续出口，中小企业的成功出口商比例就更低了，仅仅7%能够实现长久出口。和那些大型企业相比，成功出口商占据了大约40%。

表1 1990-1996年智利制造业出口现状

数据来源：全国范围制造业调查数据

在此我们关键要分析的是为什么有些中小企业会比和他规模相同企业做的成功。接下来第二部分，我们对零星的和长久的出口公司进行专业调查。第三部分，通过建立Probit模型来分析影响出口实绩的决定性因素。第四部分得出结论

进行总结。

2 可能的解释

这一部分，我们探讨关于出口商的不同点。这一步的目的是证实，公司活动的差异，能否解释为何有些中小企业会比其他同类企业更加成功。首先，我们利用数据来分析。再者我们从四个方面测试存在的问题：①技术革新②国际企业管理③管理者对出口障碍的预见④中小企业利用公共工具提高生产效率和科研能力,增加出口,进入资本市场。

2.2.1科技创新

科技创新会通过提高生产效率或研制国际市场新产品来影响出口现状。这可能是分析的背景下,企业之间的竞争在分化的产品市场。企业或许会在国内市场出售低质量的产品，但是如果他们想把自己的商品出售到国外，就必须提高他们的科学技术进而生产出高质量的商品。我们从三种不同的创新方式进行探究：产品创新、过程创新和组织创新。我们将研究结果通过表二呈现，它显示出在所有出口商之间都存在不同。长久出口商比零星出口商更重视科技创新，这个不同点还不是最主要的。然而，主要不同点在于过程和组织的创新方面。结果显示，长久出口商比中小企业在生产过程中更多的采用专业化地电脑科技，长久出口商更加具有创新性，为产品质量的提高投入比较大。

表2 科技创新

2.2.2国际商务中的努力

出口表现上的差异可以解释为对国际化公司不同程度的努力，这些差异是由于公司中的异质性获取信息和管理能力，还有其他的可能性。Kumcu和Harcar

表明，对于土耳其公司，管理者们的积极性有助于解释越来越多的人意识到出口激励机制。此外，史宾塞(2003)表明,英国海外贸易的成功受到经理的任务是积极的语言水平的提高。

在这项调查中,经理们在被问及关于几个活动的行动强度，如战略联盟与国

外和国内的公司、培训执行出口业务的员工,并促进商品销往国外。结果显示于

表格3估计数据表明，永久出口商仅在两个活动上比零星出口商积极：人才培养和相关出口业务资金营运。

2.2.3 管理者对于出口障碍吗的领悟

在出口国之一的性能差异可能的解释是，零星的出口商在其国际业务面临更大的困难。一些公司可能有很好的出口项目，例如，但如果他们面对金融市场的信贷准入问题，那么它更有可能的是，他们将离开国际市场。此外，一些公司可能会退出由于在国外市场建立保护主义壁垒。这些类型的障碍已被分为三种类型：向企业内部，国家内部和外部。

即使是不同符号表示永久转让小型出口商重视事务所的内部障碍，企业之间的两组差异不显着。关于显着性差异在获得财政资源的实际汇率和困难进化存在，但是，对于国家的内部障碍的情况。这意味着，较低和/或不稳定的实际

汇率更不是永久出口大受影响零星出口商。一个有趣的结果是，地位和sectoris

之间的互动积极和重要的变量。这表明，在经济领域没有比较优势，实际汇率的波动往往是一种散发性出口商更重要障碍。

关于信贷的机会，证据表明，更多的流动性约束是零星出口相关。这本身并发现，但是，是不是就一个决定性的因果关系。一种解释是，信贷约束限制的可能性仍然是一个出口国。这是似是而非是传统大公司比小公司的限制。另一

种解释是，资本市场的联系加强与零星的出口商经营风险，并降低获得贷款的机会可能是由于在过去的出口表现不佳。

关于外部障碍，有没有永久性的和零星的出口商之间的重要区别。准常任出口商几乎每一个障碍的发病率较低水平，尤其是关税和无关税的障碍，但零星的出口商的差异并不显着。这意味着，解释为什么一些企业不能永远不出口与在国外市场的贸易壁垒的存在有关。

2.2.4 公共工具的应用

有几个公共文书，智利企业可以使用，以提高它们的生产力和国际竞争力。可以说，在出口表现差异的，永久出口企业有更大的强度比使用有零星出口商这些文书事实有关。

智利公共文书分为三组。首先，是为了加强小企业的生产率和技术能力的工具；二是促进出口的手段，其目的是为了提高国际竞争力；三是建立完善对小企业获得信贷的金融工具。

在图1，我们显示在由公司利用这些文书组差异的结果。有证据表明，永久出口商利用一切社会公器更加剧烈。市民最常用的手段一直是促进出口的具体手段和由国家出口促进局（ProChile）管理。在促进出口的情况下，出口约35％的永久使用这种类型的公众支持，这个比例只有19％的零星出口，关于ProChile 文书，永久出口商公司参与了26.9％，零星出口商14.5％。

在上一节根据出口现状得出的证据表明，在公司行为中存在显着差异。在本节中，我们研究这些因素是否真的可以解释再出口状况中的不同。为此，我们给1996-1999年期间的永久出口商定义了一个独立的变量1，如果这个企业为零星的出口商，那么定义其为0。为了警醒经济估算，我们采用下面Probit模型：关于这个问题有两套可行的措施。首先，在我们的例子中，或许有人会认为这些变量也会受到企业出口地位的影响。实际上，那些长久做出口的企业不仅仅会进行科技创新，而且也会把更多的努力投入到国际业务中。我们的数据集是不够详细探讨这一双向因果关系的现象。相反，公司面板数据的影响将照亮出口表现对企业的行为。但是我们的方法探究了公司决策对于出口的影响，这符合有关跨国贸易文化，表明出口商和企业之间积极地关系可以更好的通过自我选择方式解释解释这一现象。