HOW DO COMPETITIVE AGGRESSIVENESS AND AUTONOMY OF SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES (SMES) DIFFER REGARDING THEIR SIZE AND AGE?(*).

SMEs play a vital role in the development of national economies. But these businesses encounter with several barriers when performing this role. To cope with these impediments, some entrepreneurial attitudes that are dimensions of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO), namely, competitive aggressiveness and autonomy enable SMEs to achieve better performance levels by increasing their revenues and income. However, depending on the characteristics of SMEs these behaviors might differ. In this regard, the purpose of this paper is to determine and examine whether competitive aggressiveness and autonomy of SMEs differ depending on their age and size or not. To fulfil this aim, the researcher has collected data from 479 SMEs in Turkey by employing a questionnaire survey. To find differences between characteristics of firms regarding selected entrepreneurial attitudes, Independent sample T-test is applied. According to the results, competitive aggressiveness of SMEs does not differ depending on their age and size. But while autonomy of smaller and larger SMEs does not differ, older SMEs have more autonomy comparing to their younger counterparts. The reasons of those result might stem from firmentrepreneurial level characteristics of SMEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]