Internationalisation of SMEs in the light of governmental support

Whenever foreign activities turn out to be essential to ensure the company's goals and competitiveness, companies become international. New markets, new lucrative resources promise profitable growth. The new step beyond the national borders requires careful consideration based on the political conditions of the target market (e.g. stability of the political system, social peace, legal certainty, institutional barriers to market entry, attitude to direct investment). The legal framework, such as state funding, environmental protection laws, tax legislation, state requirements or bureaucratic regulations, appear to be at least as relevant too. However, SMEs often lack the capacity and/or courage to take this step. Political authorities at the European level and below are aware of this problem. Numerous studies show that internationalisation is not only necessary to improve competitiveness, but greatly promote innovation, e.g. within international collaborations, it is important to get the authorities to treat these issues with special attention. Governmental promotion is supposed to work in terms of establishing regional balance and supporting socially relevant topics and research. Nevertheless, despite the willingness to support SMEs in their cross-border projects, billions of released Euros are lying around and have not been used. It seems reasonable to assume money is not easy to come by. Enormous bureaucratic hurdles are on everyone's lips. But is that the only reason? Are the people sufficiently informed to be able to take advantage of the numerous financing opportunities? Or is there even more behind the invisible hurdle at first glance? To ascertain this circumstance more precisely, an in-depth analysis to answer the research question ‘what can the institutions do better to make it easier for SMEs to access funding?’ is required