Individual, Organizational, and Institutional Determinants of Formal and Informal Inter-Firm Cooperation in SMEs

Inter-firm cooperation has been considered an important strategy for SMEs to overcome competitive difficulties. Despite the relevance of this strategy there are no studies that jointly consider how entrepreneurs' characteristics, organizational factors, and institutional features influence SMEs to establish cooperative agreements. In order to bridge this gap, we analyze what factors at these three levels explain inter-firm cooperation and whether formal and informal inter-firm agreements are explained by different factors. Our research is based on a survey of 1,587 Spanish SMEs and the results show that individual, organizational, and institutional factors contribute to jointly shape the decisions concerning inter-firm cooperation.