Public support and firm performance: a systematic review and research agenda

Public support for enterprises contributes to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. The impact evaluation is a relevant and complex topic that still receives relatively limited scholarly attention. The study consists of an integrative review of a systematic selection of 60 articles published between 1998 and 2023 on public financial and non-financial support and firm performance outcomes. The study first describes the state-of-the-art publications on public support and firm performance in terms of journal outlets, publishing year, methodologies, country of origin, sample characteristics, and unit of analysis. Through an in-depth content analysis of articles, the review proposes an integrative framework describing the relationships between public support and firm performance outcomes, also underlining interacting variables. Our critical analysis and synthesis illustrate what is confirmed in the literature and what is not. We propose an agenda for future research, contributing to the debate on enterprise policy evaluation. This review has practical implications as it contrasts public policies’ impacts on different geographical contexts, providing food for thought for practitioners and policymakers.