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Inhaltsangabe1. The role of SMEs in Western economies * Introduction * Definitions in SME financing research * Emergence of the research subject * Previous research on financing Irish SMEs * Sources of external finance available to Irish SMEs * Conclusion * 2. SME financing: A life cycle approach * Introduction * Life cycle theory of the firm * Application of the life cycle approach to the SME sector * Empirical examination of the financial growth life cycle model * Distribution of debt and equity across age groups * One-way Anova post-hoc analysis * Comparison of sources of finance employed at start-up and at present * Data on the provision of collateral by respondents * Distribution of collateral provision across age groups * Comparison of collateral provision at start-up and at present * Conclusions * 3. SME financing: Investigation of firm and industry effects * Introduction * Description of variables employed in multivariate models * Summary descriptive data of dependent variables * Summary descriptive data of independent variables * Tests for multicollinearity * Multivariate regression results * Examining statistical significance * Heteroskedasticity * Investigation of sectoral effects * Results of seemingly unrelated regression models * Conclusions * 4. SME owners' financing preferences * Introduction * Respondents' financing preferences * External financing requirement * Perceived availability of finance * Perceived internal growth constraints * Explanations for respondents' financing preferences * Control and managerial independence * Perception of funders and their requirements * Financial objectives * Respondents' considerations whenraising external finance * Considerations when raising debt * Considerations when raising external equity * Exploration of signalling, trade-off, and timing theories * Respondents' views on signalling effects * Respondents' views on debt-tax shield benefits of debt * Respondents' views on timing considerations * Conclusion * 5. Discussion and conclusions * Introduction * Discussion of results * Asymmetric information and signalling theories * Agency theory * Trade-off theory * Implications for future research * Policy implications * Implications for SME firm owners * Implications for funders * Findings in relation to initial research objectives * Firm characteristics * Owner preferences * The financial growth life cycle model * References * Appendix A Research methodology and profile of respondents * Introduction * Data collection * Selection of the sample frame * Development of the questionnaire instrument * Elements incorporated to improve response rate * Piloting and testing the questionnaire instrument * Profile of respondents * Age profile of respondents * Sectoral profile of respondents * Size profile of respondents * Respondents' expenditure on research and development * Export activity of respondents * Supporting tables presenting results of crosstabulations, chi-square tests, and directional measures. * Appendix B Previous related literature * Introduction * The Modigliani and Miller propositions * Static trade-off theory * Application of trade-off theory to the SME sector * Asymmetric information and signalling theories * Application of asymmetric information and signalling theories to the SME sector

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