Barriers to gaining support: a prospect of entrepreneurial activity of family and non-family firms in Poland

Research background: This paper explores the approach that focuses on entrepreneurial activities suppressed by restraining forces or different barriers. We investigated a particular type of obstacles reported by entrepreneurs, i.e., those which prevented their gaining access to support instruments. This paper delved into the specificity of family businesses and explained why perceptions of access to support could differ between family and non-family firms. Purpose of the article: This paper seeks to identify the differences between family and non-family businesses in terms of their perceptions of different barriers that hinder access to support instruments. Methods: The main research processes were based on logistic regression models with a dependent variable: 0 for a non-family firm and 1 for a family firm.  As dependent variables 13 barriers to the access of public support instruments were adopted. The study was conducted on a sample of 386 Polish business entities. Findings & value added: The results confirmed the existence of differences between family and non-family businesses in perceptions of barriers towards gaining support in entrepreneurial endeavours. Obstacles, such as overly-complex bureaucratic procedures and requirements, lack of access to information disseminated by business support institutions, and complicated support settlement procedures, were perceived as far less crucial by family businesses than non-family businesses. Family businesses demonstrated a lower propensity to use real property as collateral for transactions. Additionally, family businesses with financial resources that overlap with their own familial resources declared that they found it easier to make their own contributions to satisfy the requirements for support programmes or services. This paper makes several novel and significant contributions to the field. First, we add to existing research focusing exclusively on family entrepreneurial activity by drawing a comparison between family and non-family firms in terms of the perceived barriers towards gaining support. Second, we address different types of barriers. Our findings provide further evidence that different types of businesses perceive certain types of barriers differently. Third, we extend current knowledge on family businesses study in Poland.