Institutional Barriers to Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprise Operations in Transition Countries

Building on institutional theory and on existing literature regarding barriers to private businesses in transition countries, this paper examines the inter-related effect of nineteen factors grouped into four types of barriers (formal, informal, environmental and skills) on existing small- and medium-sized enterprise operations in Lithuania. Regression analyses on a sample of 332 business owners indicate that perceived formal barriers are associated with perceived informal barriers such as corruption and perceived environmental barriers are associated with perceived skill barriers such as management problems. The transition effect based on business start-up date was not found to play a significant role.