ABSTRACT
Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly considered as the backbone of economic growth and economic integration. Sustained competitiveness for small firms in an internationalized economic and financial environment is primordial for European as well as Asian countries. Following the era of multinational corporations’ boom, a corollary to deregulation, policy makers are giving increasing importance to locally based companies. The recent financial and economic crisis proved the extent of the international interdependence of economic structures. If studies are still being undertaken on the factors leading to the depth and immediacy of the crisis spread, our analysis will focus on the role of smaller sized firms as a potential economic recovery instrument in the coming years. SMEs could be responsible for a reorganization of the economic canvas at the national and international levels. Fostering competitiveness amongst SMEs is a theoretically based idea. In microeconomic theory, firms reach economic efficiency by increasing size and decreasing production costs to ensure competitiveness at the level of the industry.
