Resumen
The economic and social benefits of exports have been widely discussed in the literature. However, despite the reduction in export barriers and the consequent increase in international trade flows, many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) still do not sell their products abroad, often because they lack resources or expertise to successfully carry out export activities. Export promotion programs (EPPs) seek to assist SMEs in their efforts to compete abroad. The objective of this study is to examine a specific EPP ? the PEIEx Program of APEX-Brasil ? and identify benefits achieved and deficiencies of the program, according to multiples views. Semi-structured interviews with different actors (firms served by the program, managers of the promoting agency, instructors responsible for training and providing support to the firms, and the manager of an independent industry association) indicated that the program is, in general, satisfactory, but the results of the program seem to be contingent on proper selection of the profile of participating firms, alignment of their expectations about the scope of the program and sequential arrangement with other EPPs or competitiveness development programs. The study proposes some improvements to the PEIEx program as well as recommendations for investigating the impacts of EPPs.