دانلود رایگان مقاله استانداردهای کیفیت و فعالیت های صادراتی: آیا اندازه شرکت و مقصد بازار مهم است؟

Abstract

Using original data from French firms, this study explores the relationship between quality standards and four indicators of export activities: the logarithm of exports per employee, the logarithm of exports per employee destined for EU countries, the logarithm of exports per employee destined for non- EU countries, and the share of exports of total sales. The results indicate that the sign of the relationship between quality standards and export activities is positive and statistically signifi- cant for all four indicators, supporting the view that quality standards provide information on the general capability of a firm to meet the quality expectations of customers and thus make unobservable characteristics more public. Moreover, we examine whether the quality standards–export activities relationship is firm size dependent. The findings indicate that while quality standards improve the logarithm of exports per employee and the logarithm of exports per employee destined for non-EU countries for all categories of firm size, they do not influence logarithm of exports per employee destined for EU countries among large and small firms. Additionally, the effect is insignificant for the share of exports of total sales when we look at the medium size firms.

5. Conclusion

While quality standards have received a great deal of attention from researchers, an insight into their impact on firm exports is still lacking. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on this issue using a sample of French firms. Moreover, this study aggregates empirical evidence to answer the question of whether the quality standards-exports relationship is dependent on firm size. Actually, we want to discover whether SMEs could also benefit from quality standards implementation.