IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-01121029.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How do corporate characteristics affect capital structure decisions of French SMEs?

Author

Listed:
  • Ramzi Benkraiem

    (Audencia Recherche - Audencia Business School)

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of various corporate characteristics on the capital structure of French small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach – OLS fixed‐effect regressions are used to estimate the influence of SME corporate characteristics on three capital structure measures, namely total, long‐term and short‐term debt. Findings – The findings suggest that size, profitability, growth and tangibility of assets influence, in a significant way, the capital structure of French SMEs. Furthermore, when decomposing the sample into two groups: small (1) and medium‐sized (2) firms, the findings indicate that corporate characteristics affect the capital structure of these two subsamples in the same direction, but with different amplitudes. Originality/value – The evidence presented and discussed in this paper extends the existing literature. From an academic perspective, the methodological approach and the empirical results provide a level of analysis unmatched by the previous research on French firms. Moreover, the findings can add to the knowledge and the understanding of SME corporate managers. They can provide useful information to assist them in their decision making regarding the capital structure of their firms at a time when difficulties of SME financing are more and more evoked in the French context.

Suggested Citation

  • Ramzi Benkraiem, 2013. "How do corporate characteristics affect capital structure decisions of French SMEs?," Post-Print hal-01121029, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01121029
    DOI: 10.1108/13552551311310356
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benkraiem, Ramzi & Lakhal, Faten & Zopounidis, Constantin, 2020. "International diversification and corporate cash holding behavior: What happens during economic downturns?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 362-371.
    2. Waluyo, 2018. "Do Efficiency of Taxes, Profitability and Size of Companies affect Debt? A Study of Companies Listed in the Indonesian Stock Exchange," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(1), pages 331-339.
    3. Alfredo Grau & Araceli Reig, 2021. "Operating leverage and profitability of SMEs: agri-food industry in Europe," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 221-242, June.
    4. Kovermann, Jost & Wendt, Martin, 2019. "Tax avoidance in family firms: Evidence from large private firms," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-157.
    5. Yarong Chen & Luca Sensini & Maria Vazquez, 2021. "Determinants of Leverage in Emerging Markets: Empirical Evidence," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 11(2), pages 40-46.
    6. Youssef Walid, 2019. "Life Cycle Theory of the Capital Structure: Evidence from Tunisian SMEs," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 9(4), pages 432-449, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01121029. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.