Export risk perceptions of SMEs in selected Visegrad countries

Research background: Export activities are crucial for SMEs' growth and income since they enable businesses to expand abroad. However, SMEs encounter some export impediments, including legislative, tax-related, and cultural-linguistic differences, which increase their export risk. Moreover, since different legislative, tax-related, and cultural conditions affect SMEs' export activities, SMEs' perceptions regarding export obstacles might also differ. Purpose of the article: This paper aims to determine whether the SMEs' perceptions of export barriers in selected Visegrad countries differ. Methods: The researchers employ a random sampling method to create the research sample and create an Internet-mediated questionnaire to collect the re-search data, including 408 SMEs from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. The researchers ran ANOVA analyses with the Gabriel Post Hoc test to find differences between those SMEs. Findings & value added: The results reveal that the perceptions of Czech and Slovak SMEs differ regarding legislative and tax-related export barriers. On the other hand, the perceptions of SMEs from various countries do not differ concerning cultural-linguistic export barriers. Unfortunately, there is a lack of studies comparing the perceptions of SMEs from Visegrad countries regarding legislative, tax-related, and cultural barriers. Thus, evaluating this topic from an international perspective brings novel findings and fills this research gap. Therefore, policymakers, SMEs, governments, public institutions, and academicians might gain benefits from the results of this unique research.