This paper examines how the 2008-2009 global economic crisis affected retailers' spending on security and their losses due to theft, burglary, vandalism or arson. The main purpose of the research is to examine whether retailers were successful in allocating their funds to deal with security issues during and after an economic crisis. We investigate the role of firm characteristics, such as size, legal type, gender of owners and top managers, in influencing the level of perceived crime and security spending. Previous literature indicates that shrinkage due to theft, burglary, vandalism or arson is a threat to retailers. Loss due to theft, burglary, vandalism or arson increases in times of economic downturn as overall crime levels go up. We empirically examined the scientific problem, which is relevant to the profitability of retailers, by conducting Wilcoxon tests on data collected from twenty-nine Eastern European and Central Asian countries in 2008 and 2013. The focus of the study was Eastern European and Central Asian countries because Eastern European and Central Asian country governments have less resources to spend on combating crime compared to the developed countries and the impact of global crisis on theft, robbery, vandalism, or arson experienced by retailers might be more accentuated. Our empirical analysis indicated that fewer retailers paid for security after the crisis, and the retailers that paid for security spent less money on security. This is especially true for smaller firms, firms that are not part of a larger firm, sole proprietorships, and firms with no female owner. Fewer shareholding firms spent money on security post-crisis. Fewer retailers with male top managers spent money on security, but the ones that spent money, spent more post-crisis. Fewer retailers experienced losses due to crime post-crisis when compared to the pre-crisis period (except for partnerships, firms with five-to-nineteen employees, and firms with more than ninety-nine employees). Finally, retailers saw crime as less of an obstacle to their operation during the post-crisis period when compared to the pre-crisis period. This research has implications to the policymakers and retail managers by providing them the trends in crime and security spending for different retailer groups.

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This paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on the issue of how technology use in entrepreneurial process relates to firm performance and business owner’s optimism in U.S. states. We specifically focus on each U.S. state’s success in employing internet as a tool during the startup process, the tax payment process, and the licensing process. We try to answer the following question: “Do the small firms that operate in an internet-friendly state perform better than the small firms that operate in a less internet-friendly state?” We also examine how internet usage affects owners’ outlook for the future. Our results show that the prevalence of internet use for tax payments or for licensing in a state is not related to companies’ performance or their owners’ outlook. The prevalence of internet use during the startup process also does not affect firms’ performance. However, our findings indicate that the prevalence of internet use during the startup process affects owners’ outlook for the future. If a state is more business friendly in terms of the internet startup process, the small business owners in that state tend to be more optimistic in terms of future hiring plans and in terms of encouraging others to start a business in their state. The relevance of these findings is that, to improve the environment for small businesses, states should focus on starting an internet startup process or on improving their existing process. Investigation of the impact of technology use on growth and on owner’s optimism in the paper is carried out in the following logical sequence: First, each state is assigned into one of two groups based on their “Internet start score”. The states that have a score higher than the mean state were assigned into the “High-Internet Start Score” group and the others were assigned into the “Low-Internet Start Score” group. Then, the two groups were compared in terms of firm growth and owner’s optimism. Then, the same procedure is followed for “Internet Tax Score”. The states that have a score higher than the mean state were assigned into the “High-Internet Tax Score” group and the others were assigned into the “Low-Internet Tax Score” group. The two groups were compared in terms of firm growth and owner’s optimism. Finally, the same procedure is followed for “Internet Licensing Score”. The states that have a score higher than the mean state were assigned into the “High-Internet Licensing Score” group and the others were assigned into the “Low-Internet Licensing Score” group. Then, the two groups were compared in terms of firm growth and owner’s optimism. We used nonparametric tests to compare high and low score states in each category. Only 41 states had sufficient data to run the analyses. The paper presents the results of these nonparametric tests which showed that internet start score, internet tax score, or internet licensing score does not explain firm growth. However, the prevalence of internet use during the startup process affects owners’ outlook for the future. The results of the research can be useful for state or local governments that want to support their small businesses by improving the technology use in these areas.

In this study, we attempt to find the factors that influence small business owners’ optimism as well as their company’s success. For this purpose, we use a survey done by Kauffman foundation. This survey asks business owners about their state’s performance in areas like “ease of starting a business”, “ease of hiring”, “regulations”, and “training and networking programs”. It also asks business owners questions about their firm’s performance and their optimism for the future. We run several tests to see if business owners are more optimistic and more successful in states with a high score in each “business friendliness” area. We show that, in the states with a higher business friendliness composite score, both growth in revenue and growth in employees are higher and also owners tend to be more encouraging to others. Regression analyses support these findings (except for growth in employees). Our results indicate that growth in revenue is driven mainly by the Ease of Start score. In other words, the revenues of small businesses grow faster in the states with a better initial registration/establishment process. Our results also indicate that growth in the number of employees is driven mainly by the Overall Regulations score. In other words, small businesses grow faster (in terms of the number of employees) in the states with more favorable regulations. With respect to whether or not the owners would encourage others to start a business in their state, our results show that all subcomponents (Ease of Start, Ease of Hire, Overall Regulations, and Training and Networking programs) are important. The owners are more encouraging to others when Ease of Start, Ease of Hire, Overall Regulations, and Training and Networking programs are all favorable. Overall, we conclude that while all components of business friendliness have a positive relation with the small business owners’ optimism, the link between the business friendliness score and firm performance is weaker. Ease of Start is important for growth in revenues and optimism, Ease of Hire is important for optimism only, Overall Regulations are important for growth in the number of employees and optimism, and Training and Networking Programs are crucial for optimism. Keywords: regulations, business friendliness, small business, entrepreneurship, firm performance.

In this study, we examine how the 2008-2009 Global Crisis has affected the informal payments/gifts paid by retailers in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. We look at the overall incidence of bribes, the incidence of bribes in customs/imports, the incidence of bribes in courts, and the incidence of bribes in tax payments. We compare the crisis period to the post-crisis period and found that these firms believed that the incidence of bribes went down significantly after the crisis ended. When we differentiate the retailers with respect to size, structure, legal form, gender of the owners, gender of the top manager, and whether or not they held an international quality certification, we found that, the results hold for all classifications of retailers. When we go into more detail and examine the incidence of bribes in customs/imports, courts, and taxes/tax collection, we found that the respondents saw a significant drop in the incidence of bribes in all areas after the crisis ended. However, our results show that, for bribes in customs/imports, the results do not hold for some of the classifications (i.e. medium-sized and the largest small firms, the firms that are part of a larger firm, the shareholding firms trading in the market, the partnerships, and the firms with an internationally recognized quality certification). For bribes in courts, the results do not hold for the largest small firms and the partnerships. For bribes in taxes/tax collection, the results do not hold for the partnerships and the firms with a quality certification. Our findings are consistent with the low rankings of these countries in Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index data. Our findings are also consistent with previous studies’ findings that document high-levels of corruption in developing (or less developed) nations.