Market Revenue and the Scope and Scale of SME Networks in Europe's Vulnerable Regions

Abstract

IntroductionEuropean integration is a vital element in the competitive circumstances of firms, industries, regions, and nations. As the economic geography of whole industries has changed over the past couple of decades, so too have the relevance and utility of inherited institutions and competitive practices. It might be argued that the competitive advantage of firms has a profound long-term relationship to their local milieuö endowments and resources. It is also apparent that the competitive advantage of firms may be less profound and more contingent, being the product of their adaptive capacity and their network associations. There is a growing body of research in economics and geography that stresses the microeconomics of firm structure and their relationships as opposed to the comparative advantage of whole nations and regions (see, for example, Storper and Salais, 1997).

Place, sorting effects and barriers to enterprise in deprived areas: Different problems or different firms?

“…Efforts may be better targeted at enabling residents to access existing opportunities. Similarly, attempts to improve demand for local firms may fail, as not all firms are embedded into local markets, with firms developing strategies at range of scales (Clark et al, 2004a).…”

“…First, policies such as LEGI are based on the idea that demand for goods and services will be lower in deprived areas, making local demand an issue for firms (Drever, 2006). However, theoretical work suggests that surviving firms will have adapted their business to serve other markets (Clark et al, 2004a). The Annual Small Business Survey does not have a variable for the strength of the local economy, and so a variable for whether general economic conditions are an obstacle to success was used ('Economy').…”

The diverse regional patterns of atypical employment in Greece: Production restructuring, re/deregulation and flexicurity under crisis

“…However, in the EU peripheral economies, labor market reform since the late-1980s has enforced precarious employment mainly for the young (women and immigrants), irrespective of their skills (Barbieri, 2009). Atypical employment in the core EU regions has (for the most part) been an intermediate step to permanent employment, while in the peripheral EU regions, it has instead served temporary demand (Clark et al, 2004;Barbieri and Scherer, 2009;Gialis, 2011;Peters, 2008).…”

Atypical employment in crisis-hit Greek regions: Local production structures, flexibilization and labour market re/deregulation

“…These high rates are related to the very small size of the average Greek firm (i.e. two employees) compared to the respective EU average (Clark et al, 2004;Mihail, 2003). Also, a large part of contemporary self-employment concerns quasi selfemployment, which conceals dependent employment and has developed as a way for very small firms to circumvent labour regulations (on overtime hours, security provisions as the self-employed were until recently excluded from union contracts and employment legislation.…”