Barriers to international purchasing: the relevance of firm characteristics

Abstract

Despite trends towards growing globalization of the world economy, the further development of import trade is still hindered by a number of barriers. Based on a sample of 100 Cypriot importers, an attempt is made to assess the impact of these barriers on import behaviour. Overall, these barriers were found to have only a modest effect, with greatest concern expressed for those hindering competitiveness in buying from abroad. In analyzing barriers according to the principal origin of imports, with a few exceptions, no significant differences were observed. A factor analysis combined import barriers into six dimensions, with `competition-related problems' being the most influential. In investigating the relevance of firm characteristics on import barrier dimensions, the latter were highly but inversely associated with business experience and company size. Of the six dimensions, `adverse foreign conditions' exhibited a strong link with most of the firm attributes examined.