The impact of enterprise size on the profitability of agricultural enterprises in the Republic of Serbia

Abstract

The size of the enterprise is one of the most important determinants of the profitability of the enterprise. Some domestic and numerous foreign authors have tried to point out the impact that the size of the enterprise has on profitability. The results of these surveys have been contradictory, namely, some surveys have shown that larger enterprises are more profitable, some that smaller enterprises are more profitable, and some studies have indicated that the size of the enterprise has no impact on profitability. These contradictory conclusions led the authors of this paper to investigate the impact of enterprise size on profitability. This survey used data from regular financial statements for 121 agricultural enterprises for the period from 2014 to 2017. The rate of return on assets (ROA) was used as a measure of the profitability of agricultural enterprises, while the size of each enterprise was taken from the official statements of these enterprises according to the Company Classification Act. The results of the research have shown that larger enterprises were more profitable compared to small and medium-sized enterprises, but that this difference in performance was not statistically significant. It is a general conclusion that the size of the enterprise does not have a statistically significant impact on the profitability of the sampled agricultural enterprises.

Keywords

• agricultural enterprises
• profitability
• return on assets (roa)
• enterprise size
• the kruskal-wallis test