We analyze the principal objectives and constraints of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), using data from a survey of 437 owners and top managers (CEOs) of SMEs in Russia and Bulgaria. The CEOs display similar views and identify a small number of specific constraints as being the most...

This paper is concerned with the analysis of firm performance, measured as total factor productivity, using a panel of over 1200 Bulgarian and 200 Estonian firms. The main empirical conclusions are (i) higher Financial and competitive pressure improves firm performance in Bulgaria; (ii)...

We compare the change in ownership concentration in firms privatized through two different programs of mass privatization: the Czech voucher scheme and the Polish program of National Investment Funds. Despite important differences in ownership structure at the start of the process and in the...

Mass privatization offers a particularly suitable framework to study the change in ownership concentration as the extent of change is unusual for a stable market economy. Focusing on two different mass privatization schemes in two transition economies, Poland and the Czech Republic, we find that...

Drawing on a unique set of surveys, this article explores the question of whether Russia’s post-communist business associations are generally antithetical to or supportive of the broad objectives of economic restructuring. Contrary to the most widely cited analysis as to the purposes of...

Inter-firm information exchange with respect to the reliability of trade partners may be unmediated in the sense that it involves direct communication between the personnel of two firms. Alternatively, this information flow may be channeled by or through an organization such as a trade...

This paper proposes a composite measure to evaluate a firm's survival potential. The composite measure is applied to 51 Russian firms located in Moscow, Volgograd, Rostov and Taganrog, utilizing data collected in 1995 from in-depth interviews with top-level managers of manufacturing, trade, and...

This paper examines the emergence of firm-celebrity, both an intangible-asset, and a facilitator of competitive advantage. Institutional approaches have asserted that organizations from the same organizational field and characterized by comparable structural positions face similar structural...

While a variety of studies analysed the benign effects of privatisation on firm performance under post-socialist transition using financial data very little is known about how the apparent productivity gains were achieved. This paper follows a weaving mill from 1998 to 1997 on its way of...

This paper examines the nature and scope of enterprise restructuring in Russia using two sources of firm-level data. The first involves a panel of over 2,000 civilian manufacturing firms in Moscow, Tver, Volgograd, Rostov, and Novosibirsk. The second involves data collected from a series of...