ABSTRACT
This study confirms that, at least in the case of R&D-intensive medical instruments, the removal of NTBs has led to a deepening integration of international economic activity within the EU. The empirical part of this research shows that the liberalisation of cross-border markets has increased and intensified these SMEs’ international activities. It can be taken as an example of how SMEs may have reacted to the Single Market of 1992 and to the single currency of 1999-2002. However, SMEs have to follow certain strategies in order to stay internationally successful. First, the questionnaire research in France, Germany and Italy demon-
strated that SMEs in the MSE industry, located outside industrial districts, were strongly affected by the removal of NTBs and in particular by the abolition of physical barriers. They increased not only their export volume, but also their further involvement in the EU through cooperation agreements or FDI.1 By doing so, they were able to exploit their firmspecific advantages to a larger extent than before 1992. Second, the case-study research showed how SMEs in the same industry
benefited from being located in an industrial district. Through the advantage of proximity,2 enterprises were able to gain in international competitiveness. SMEs producing specialised, R&D-intensive surgical instruments were the winners in the Single Market Programme. They increased their international operations to the EU and planned or realised other foreign-market entry strategies in addition to exports. However, firms producing standardised surgical instruments did not feel affected by the Single Market Programme. A common experience for enterprises both inside and outside industrial
districts is therefore the increased exploitation of their firm-specific advantages after the 1992 abolition of NTBs, when traditional comparative advantages were challenged. In the following section these firmspecific advantages will be focused on, to discover if hypotheses 1 and 2 of this research are rejected or not. In the second section the answer to hypothesis 3 is concentrated on. In the third section an attempt is made to show some strategies that lead to international success.
