Export Competitiveness Of SMEs In Kazakhstan

Small and medium enterprise is the keystone of development of economy and helps to maintain sustainable development of country in globalized world.Peculiarity of SMEs is creation job place and accelerating the growth of countries' economy,which become a key factor of competition in the world market.The scope of international trade and business makes urgent to analyze the factors of SMEs export competitiveness.Despite of many researchers has conducted some studies on export competitiveness of SMEs in developed economies,there isn't enough researches about SME's export competitiveness,especially in the framework of transition economy countries,such as Kazakhstan.Therefore,this research aims to examine the factors of SME's export competitiveness through directing the question:What are the crucial factors for enhancing export competitiveness of SMEs in Kazakhstan.This research has added the literature on export competitiveness of SMEs in transition economies by giving guidance for future studies in sphere of SME international market.The theoretical context of this thesis covers several perspectives,like internationalization theory,international entrepreneurship theory,Porter's diamond theory,resource based view theory,Uppsala model theory,innovation and knowledge related theories.In the empirical stage,the study conducts quantitative approach,where in survey included 40 SME exporters(respondents)in Kazakhstan,particularly Almaty region.Five hypotheses were examined on the main problems in this research,which were statistically analyzed through using logit regression and Pearson correlation with the tool of SPSS.The key findings suggests that government supports,firm age have had positive influence on SME's export competitiveness in Kazakhstan,while other remained three determinants such as innovative capacity,the size of firm and access to finance had affected negatively.Throughout findings,this research puts forward the several paths for improving SME's export competitiveness.The research also offers guidance for policy makers and SME business owners in developing export leading programs for enhancing the export competitiveness in Kazakhstan.