Russian Roulette: Survival of Foreign SMEs in Emerging Economies During Crisis-Evidence from Romania

Abstract: The survival circumstances for foreign SMEs in emerging economies during an economic crisis are extremely difficult. In this research we focus on examining underlying firm and corporate level characterisctics, which are not affected directly by strategic decisions, as a response to the crisis among foreign SMEs operating across 12 industries in Romania. Our empirical findings show that the type of industry, the country of origin, the industrial development and political systems of home and host countries have a significant relationship to the companies’ survival. These findings indicate the increasing intricacy of the relationships between various host economies, players of economic origins but also political institutions, as well as underline the global interconnectedness and home-host dynamics wave effects.