1.3 Research gap & Research questions
 As it is clear to understand the basic barriers for a food SME to internationalization Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), potentially constitute the most dynamic firms in emerging economies (Pissarides, 1999).A research gap that occurs is the fact that there are not so many studies about the major institutional problems like the Political, Governmental or Legal that food small, medium, and micro businesses in the Greek market face in internationalization. These institutional problems by dividing them on Political, Legal and Governmentalas reasons can have a possible important role in asmall and medium enterprise and of course basically when it comes to exports in products or services when entering other markets. Except these barriers, also some financial statements in a country can be a barrier for a business’s an example political instability in a country outside the Euro zone, where there are fixed institutions about exporting products or services, would be a reason that many foods small and medium businesses may not have a great possibility to export or advance its exports. This could be also an instability that occurs in the global markets from economic reasons or even wars the latest years. These challenges as well as an unstable economic environment and a lot of increased fixed costs due to energy crisis challenges, can affect a small business to expand. In this research the main basic research questionsrespond to the identification of the institutional barriers, especially the governmental and legal ones in Greek food and beverage SMEs, regarding that all the maininstitutional factors can affect export propensity and the performance, and therefore omitting such factors could seriously limit our understanding about exporting. (Gao et al. 2010).  So, our research questions, according to the motivation of the research are formulated as following: Q1) Which exactly are the major institutional barriers that Greek Food and Beverages SMEs face, that are involving in international trade? Q2) What are the key financial issues that SMEs face when trying to deal with these barriers? Q3) In which way the export policy and political decisions affecting the food and beverage SME international development?  Taking as research questions, all the above the research goal in this study, is to identify all these institutional barriers that are contained in government regulations and political decisions that Greek food and beverage enterprises are facing and will face in the future and investigate some other barriers, as well as, to propose some solutions to help development for Greek food SMEs. This paper is based on an exploratory qualitative research methodology which could lead us to concrete results and answers for our basic research questions.
В статье рассматривается проблема международной торговли для греческих малых и средних предприятий (SMEs), особенно в сфере продовольствия и напитков. Автор подчеркивает, что существуют серьезные институциональные барьеры, которые могут препятствовать развитию SMEs в этой области. Он также отмечает, что некоторые финансовые проблемы, такие как нестабильность в экономике и энергетический кризис, также могут повлиять на SMEs. В целом, автор подчеркивает необходимость улучшения политики и решений, направленных на развитие SMEs в международной торговле.