Determinants of Cross-Border Activity in the Sme Sector of Eastern Eu Border Regions Before the Pandemic

Izabela Zabielska; Jarosław M. Nazarczuk; Magdalena Wojarska; Joanna Zielińska-Szczepkowska

doi:10.14746/quageo-2026-0022

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Determinants of Cross-Border Activity in the Sme Sector of Eastern Eu Border Regions Before the Pandemic

Quaestiones Geographicae

Volume 45 (2026): Issue 2 (June 2026)

By: Izabela Zabielska , Jarosław M. Nazarczuk , Magdalena Wojarska and Joanna Zielińska-Szczepkowska

Open Access

|Jun 2026

Figures & Tables

Location of firms from the research sample.

Average marginal effects of cross-border firm concentration (lm_fn_act) on the probability of market engagement (fn_act) across neighbouring countries.

The scale and types of foreign and cross-border activity (% of total surveyed firms)_

Type of activity	No	Yes	%
Overall cross-border activity	198	140	41.4
– foreign trade	227	111	32.8
– subsidiaries/affiliates	322	16	4.7
– exchange employees	303	35	10.4
– promotional activity/licenses	271	67	19.8
– other	309	29	8.6
Overall foreign activity	147	191	56.5
– foreign trade	170	168	49.7
– subsidiaries/affiliates	318	20	5.9
– exchange employees	297	41	12.1
– promotional activity/licenses	223	115	34.0
– other	288	50	14.8

The list of descriptive statistics used in the study_

Variable	Description	N	Mean	Std. Dev.	Min	Max
fn_act	Firms with cross-border activity (dummy)	338	0.414	0.493	0	1
f_act	Firms active in foreign markets (dummy)	338	0.565	0.496	0	1
lemp	Firm’s employment (ln)	338	2.503	1.461	0	6.461
know	Great knowledge of cross-border market (dummy)	338	0.302	0.460	0	1
coop	Cooperants already present in cross-border market (dummy)	338	0.130	0.337	0	1
innov_i	Introduced innovations at international level (dummy)	338	0.062	0.242	0	1
lm_fn_act	No. of firms active in cross-border market in municipality (ln)	338	–0.590	3.218	–6.908	2.08
ldist_fn_act	Distance to te nearest firm active in cross-border market (ln)	338	–3.520	5.112	–10.937	4.463

Firms active in a cross-border market by the cross-border country (percentage)_

Description/closest border	RU	LT	BY	UA	SK
Overall cross-border activity (%)	33.9	30.0	49.5	38.5	42.1
– foreign trade	25.4	20.0	36.2	32.1	38.2
– subsidiaries/affiliates	1.7	0.0	6.7	3.8	6.6
– exchange employees	8.5	10.0	13.3	10.3	7.9
– promotional activity/licenses	14.3	0.0	31.4	15.4	19.7
– other	5.1	0.0	13.3	6.4	9.2
N	59	20	105	78	76

Determinants of cross-border cooperation_

Variables	(1) fn_act	(2) fn_act	(3) fn_act	(4) fn_act	(5) fn_act	(6) fn_act	(7) fn_act
lemp	1.371***	1.326***	1.309***	1.313***	1.321***	1.305***	1.314***
lemp	–0.083	–0.089	–0.093	–0.094	–0.096	–0.095	–0.096
know		1.855**	1.981**	2.000**	2.059**	2.057**	2.077**
know		–0.256	–0.282	–0.284	–0.293	–0.295	–0.294
coop		2.735***	2.650***	2.678***	2.370**	2.417**	2.421**
coop		–0.346	–0.376	–0.382	–0.392	–0.392	–0.398
innov_i		2.234	2.036	2.004	1.837	1.9	1.904
innov_i		–0.514	–0.568	–0.584	–0.61	–0.641	–0.641
lm_fn_act			1.461***	1.471***	1.490***	1.272***	1.267***
lm_fn_act			–0.037	–0.039	–0.041	–0.066	–0.066
Belarus					2.809	1.611	2.32
Belarus					–0.655	–0.328	–0.656
Lithuania					1.586	0.969	1.455
Lithuania					–0.84	–0.525	–0.831
Russia					1.597	0.993	1.307
Russia					–0.677	–0.394	–0.678
Ukraine					2.025	1.459	1.622
Ukraine					–0.431	–0.383	–0.41
Belarus * lm_fn_act						1.185	1.199*
Belarus * lm_fn_act						–0.107	–0.108
Lithuania * lm_fn_act						1.024	1.028
Lithuania * lm_fn_act						–0.156	–0.157
Russia * lm_fn_act						1.226	1.23
Russia * lm_fn_act						–0.131	–0.132
Ukraine * lm_fn_act						1.311**	1.306**
Ukraine * lm_fn_act						–0.109	–0.109
Constant	0.315***	0.237***	0.241***	0.296***	0.092***	0.150***	0.111***
Constant	–0.252	–0.28	–0.294	–0.414	–0.698	–0.426	–0.707
Observations	338	338	338	338	338	338	338
Sectoral FE	NO	NO	NO	NO	YES	YES	YES
Region FE	NO	NO	NO	YES	YES	NO	YES
Country FE	NO	NO	NO	NO	YES	YES	YES
Pseudo R2	0.0357	0.0821	0.203	0.206	0.228	0.232	0.233
LR	14.59	33.19	121.7	126.4	133.1	125.1	125.4
p	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000
AUC	0.624	0.674	0.763	0.765	0.782	0.786	0.786
AIC	446.2	430.9	377.4	382.1	385.8	388.2	391.8
BIC	453.8	450.1	400.4	416.5	447	457	468.2
Corr. class. (%)	65.38%	68.05%	68.34%	68.64%	71.30%	70.41%	69.53%

References

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.14746/quageo-2026-0022 | Journal eISSN: 2081-6383 | Journal ISSN: 2082-2103

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Language: English

Page range: 65 - 82

Submitted on: Jul 3, 2025

Published on: Jun 30, 2026

Published by: Adam Mickiewicz University

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

cross-border activity,

internationalisation,

small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs),

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© 2026 Izabela Zabielska, Jarosław M. Nazarczuk, Magdalena Wojarska, Joanna Zielińska-Szczepkowska, published by Adam Mickiewicz University
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 45 (2026): Issue 2 (June 2026)

Determinants of Cross-Border Activity in the Sme Sector of Eastern Eu Border Regions Before the Pandemic

Figures & Tables

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

The scale and types of foreign and cross-border activity (% of total surveyed firms)_

The list of descriptive statistics used in the study_

Firms active in a cross-border market by the cross-border country (percentage)_

Determinants of cross-border cooperation_

Paradigm

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