The impact of corporate characteristics on the financial decision of companies. Evidence on funding decision by Italian SMEs

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) represent a large percentage of the corporatetissue of developed countries, but they do not have adequate attention. In fact, variousresearchers have focused their studies on larger and well-known companies. Thispaper aims to investigate the impact of corporate characteristic on the financial choicesof SMEs, with a specific focus on agro-food micro companies. Access to finance is vitalin business start-up, development and growth for SMEs, all with very different needsand facing face different challenges in terms of finance compared to large companies.The lack of equity invested in small enterprises makes them more dependent on otherexternal sources (e.g. bank loans. Overdraft, factoring and leasing). The limitations ofthe paper are the result of its very nature: it is a largely conceptual paper. Empiricalresearch is therefore needed to test and validate the essentially preliminary framework