La comunicazione economico-finanziaria delle piccole imprese che operano sui mercati internazionali. Profili generali (cap. 3); La comunicazione economico-finanziaria delle piccole imprese che operano sui mercati internazionali. L'influenza dei soci esteri (cap. 4)

Internationalisation, both as an answer to environmental changes and as a strength of competitive positioning, is a fundamental aim for the developing of the Italian system, independently from firms dimensions. In fact, it is confirmed by empirical evidences that small businesses are increasingly concerned with international competition. Undoubtedly this process requires small firms and small entrepreneurs to own new attitudes, new relationship competencies and professional know-how in order to manage their growth in a international context . Accounting is the language of business. As a consequence we think that Small Business aiming to grow in foreigner markets, should learn technical skills for drawing up financial statements in a effective way. This in order to improve their communication process with foreign stakeholders (as client and suppliers, value chain partners, investors and others). Since, our research attempts to: - evaluate which information is currently offered by these small firms that operate in international markets (both information compulsory and voluntarily given to users); - suggest some improvements, according to a normative view, in order to increase the usefulness of small businesses financial statements. The survey covers 135 small firms. Our main findings suggest that: - the way of internationalisation followed by small business of our sample is conforming with models suggested by literature; - many small entrepreneurs do not use their company financial accounts and annual reports as support tools to communicate with their stakeholders, both national and foreign ones. This is consistent with our previous researches and with literature. As a consequence of this, we suggest that the financial statements of small business have to increase their usefulness both for stakeholders and for the management of these firms.

Il principale obiettivo della ricerca consiste nell’esaminare la strategia di comunicazione economico-finanziaria delle PI sui mercati esteri, al fine di verificare se il processo di internazionalizzazione si configura come fattore determinante nell’indurre l’impresa ad arricchire, in senso sia qualitativo che quantitativo, il flusso informativo destinato ai propri stakeholder. Dai risultati dell’ indagine svolta emerge che nonostante sia possibile rilevare una correlazione positiva tra il grado di internazionalizzazione e la produzione di flussi informativi a sostegno dell’attività di export, il processo di internazionalizzazione produce ancora effetti limitati sullo scambio di informazioni di natura economico-finanziaria tra le imprese.