The vitality of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in rural Quebec

The purpose of this research is to determine the influence that a given milieu exerts on the propensity of a small business to export. The concept of "milieu" is a support space for small exporters which may be geographic but also includes dimensions of history, tradition, culture and social behaviour. Businesses tend to act alone. Although networking to exchange information among businesses is promoted as an appropriate strategy, such networking is nor really occurring. Contacts with local and regional development officers are very limited. Many company executives feel that government programmes are not worth the effort to qualify for them. The presence of the elements of an information network do not imply that a network will operate. Although distance is a rural factor limiting the successful operation of networks, urban researchers have noted that even the existence of a critical (urban) mass does not necessarily ensure the existence of information exchanges among firms.