Planning Behavior Variables in Small Firms

Much of the empirical data that identifies the incidence of planning in small firms and the variables associated with that planning is based on small samples subject to geographic and industry constraints. The intent of this article is to partially overcome those limitations by testing relationships using results from a large Australian-wide, multiple-period sample. For each of three years, the frequency with which firms maintained documented business plans was determined and tested for associations with a range of traditional "business structure" demographic variables and a group of "management structure" variables. Results support expectations that size, volume, training, intention to change operations, and the major decision-maker's education are positively associated with business planning. Results also indicate that a significant number of firms change planning behavior states over time.     

Subcontracting and the Performance of Small and Medium Firms in Japan

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the choices made by Japanese firms with respect to subcontracting status, that is, whether to take in work as subcontractor, to outsource work to subcontractors, to do both or to do neither. It shows that the probability of working as a subcontractor, a choice made by many small firms in Japan, is negatively related to size, foreign sales and technological capability. Furthermore, profits do not appear to be higher for subcontracting firms; indeed, they are highest for the group that does not get involved in any type of subcontracting, whether as a supplier or as an outsourcer.     

Barriers Inhibiting Export Performance of Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Firms

Abstract

This study uses a step-wise discriminant analysis to address two related questions. First, to identify those inhibiting factors perceived to be both important and difficult to counter when a firm is initiating an export program. Second, to address the criticism that the current export research has failed to differentiate between degree of importance and the level of difficulty that firm may encounter when entering foreign markets. Two-hundred and forty-two small and medium-sized Wisconsin manufacturing firms were surveyed. The findings identified three barriers perceived to be both important and difficult to overcome. However, they did not support the criticism that we must differentiate between the degree of importance and the level of difficulty.     

Market Orientation, Innovativeness, Product Innovation, and Performance in Small Firms

Most research on market orientation, innovation and performance is related to big enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In this study a model is developed to investigate the combined effect of market orientation and innovativeness on product innovation and company performance, for small firms. A specific feature of our research is that we use an objective measure for product innovation in contrast to the self-reported measures commonly used in research on innovation. To test our model data from 152 rose growers were used. This study's results show that the owner's innovativeness permeates all variables in the model and has a positive influence on market orientation, innovation, and performance. An interesting research result is also that customer market intelligence influences product innovation positively or negatively, depending on whether the innovativeness of the owner in the new product domain is weak or strong.     

股权集中度与创新绩效:国有企业与家族企业的比较研究

基于2004-2008年关于制造业的配对面板数据,检验了股权集中度、公司所有制性质对企业创新绩效的影响,以及独立董事比例对这一影响关系的调节作用.结果显示:(1)股权集中度在不同所有制性质的企业中对创新绩效的作用程度不同,国有企业中股权集中度的上升能够显著促进企业创新投入,家族企业中股权集中度的上升对创新投入具有显著的阻碍作用,即随着股权集中度的上升,国有企业与家族企业在创新投入方面具有显著不同的偏好;且国有企业中股权集中度对企业创新过程和创新产出的影响更显著.(2)独立董事对股权集中度与企业创新绩效之间的关系具有正向调节作用,且这种调节作用在国有企业中更为显著.     

Relationships among Strategic Capabilities and the Performance of Women-Owned Small Ventures

This study of small, life-style ventures owned by women focuses on the strategic, firm-level factors related to business performance. A theoretical model drawing on the resource-based theory is developed and tested empirically. The model includes strategic capabilities, management styles, and their relation to performance. It is tested empirically on a sample of 220 Israeli female business owners. Analysis reveals that life-style venture performance is highly correlated with certain aspects of the business owner's skills as well as the venture&apops;s resources. Paradoxically, the owner/managers in the sample rate their skills and their venture's resources as being weak in precisely those areas that correlate positively with business performance. These findings suggest that performance of life-style ventures owned by women depends more on marketing, financial, and managerial skills than on innovation.     

Taxation and the Performance of Technology Based Small Firms in the U.K.

This paper analyses a database of U.K. small companies in order to establish the profile of Technology Based Small Firms (TBSFs) in terms of their demography, financial structure and performance, and tax affairs. Following the evaluation of the impact of direct taxation on the high technology small companies, compared to that of their low technology counterparts, the paper briefly discusses the current policy debate about the nature and appropriateness of tax-based incentives for the development of this strategically important scale and type of enterprise.     

Financial Analysis of Palestinian Industry Including Small Scale Firms

The study aims to explore the financial aspects of the Palestinian industry, and to investigate productivity and efficiency of small scale industry compared with large scale firms. In order to help policy makers in industrial planning in the new emerged Palestinian state. A special instrument has been used to collect the financial and quantitative data for the related manufacturing firms from a random sample of 215 Palestinian firms. The one way analysis of variance test was used to examine whether the mean scores differ significantly among scale sizes of the Palestinian industry concerning the selected performance measures. In addition, the Scheffe test was used as a post hoc comparison way to identify which scale size firms' performance differs than the other two scale sizes.The research revealed that small scale firms in Palestinian industry have higher labor productivity values than large scale firms, while large scale firms accomplished higher net profit margin compared to small scale industry. Creating an additional job in large scale Palestinian industry needs less cost than creating a job in small scale industry, and large scale firms have better opportunity in getting external financing than small firms.     

Symbiotic International Business Networks: Collaboration between Small and Large Firms

As the drivers of globalization remove barriers that traditionally segmented the competitive environments of small and large firms, firms of all sizes are beginning to share the same competitive space. Symbiotic arrangements are evolving through which smaller firms enter the value chains of larger firms, to the benefit of both sides. Using a conceptual framework with illustrative examples, this article explains how smaller firms can use symbiotic, collaborative arrangements with larger firms to overcome inherent constraints of size and to achieve the efficiencies required for world‐class competitiveness. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons,Inc.     

企业与公共研究机构研发产出比较研究

近年来中国专利和论文产出均呈爆炸式增长,企业和公共研究机构作为研发创新主力,其创新行为有何特点？是否发挥了各自的比较优势？本文使用2008—2014年国家工程技术研究中心调研数据,采用泊松准极大似然估计等方法,对企业和公共研究机构的研发产出进行比较研究.本文使用论文发表数和专利申请数度量研发产出数量,使用SCI论文发表数和专利授权数度量研发产出质量.研究表明,公共研究机构在论文产出数量和质量两方面都表现出色,而企业研究机构在专利产出的数量和质量两方面都未能表现出显著优势.为研究企业没能发挥在专利产出方面优势的原因,本文使用子样本进行深入分析后发现:公共研究机构充分发挥了人力资源的作用;而企业研究机构更多地依赖于研发资金投入,人力资源的作用基本缺失,且表现为外部环境驱动下的被动创新.研究结论揭示出企业和公共研究机构研发创新行为的深层逻辑,为政府科研决策提供了理论和实证支持.     

Small Firms and Economic Transformation in Bulgaria

The pace of transition to a market economy has been slower in Bulgaria than in some other east European countries in the 1990s. Output levels in the state owned sector, which has not yet been subject to mass privatisation, have fallen sharply and there has been a dramatic increase in unemployment. There has however also been a rapid growth in the number of small firms, and the ability of this sector to generate new jobs will be an important component of labour market dynamics in the future. Some of the main characteristics of this emergent sector are identified on the basis of a sample survey of nearly 400 small Bulgarian firms, covering competitiveness, entrepreneurship, innovation, networking, labour relations and business performance of the small firms. Key features of a subset of small firms with an orientation towards employment growth are identified.     

The Impact of Innovativeness and Development Time on New Product Performance for Small Firms

Timing is becoming a new source of competitive advantage. The business press extols the benefits of faster product development. This paper examines whether competitive advantage can be gained by reducing development time across all types of new products or whether this advantage is restricted to certain types of new products. It proposes that product innovativeness moderates the relationship between development time and initial market performance. A survey of 110 small manufacturing firms in computer related industries supports the hypothesis. The survey findings indicate that a firm must guard against over- or under-development of the new product since product innovativeness was found to influence the impact of development time on market performance. The implications for managers are: beware of bringing a new product that is too much, too early or too little, too late.     

Research Issues Relating to Structure,Competition, and Performance of Small Technology-Based Firms

The role that small firms play in industrial organization has evolved considerably since the second world war. This paper seeks to document how and why small business plays a very different role in industrial organization research today than it did some three decades ago.     

Alliance Strategies of Small Firms

The paper concludes that small firms follow one of two alliance strategies. When the firms are small relative to their rivals and to their market, they tend to use alliances to gain economies of scale and scope; when they are large in relative terms, they avoid alliances. This behavior is consistent with alliance usage by large firms. The paper also analyzes the sources of profit for a small firm that uses a "constellation" of allies to compete in a scale-intensive industry. Its profits depend on a combination of the group-based advantages generated by the constellation, and the share of these profits that the firm can appropriate from the group. Small firms face particular hazards in this regard when their bargaining power within their constellation is weak. The paper illustrates these arguments with data froma small survey, with case studies from the computer industry, and with a simple mathematical model.     

Small Firms,Social Capital and the Enhancement of Business Performance Through Innovation Programmes

The paper explores the extent to which social capital is advantageous to small and medium enterprise (SME) growth. Social capital is a communal property involving civic engagement, associational membership, high trust, reliability and reciprocity in social networks. It is capable of being identified in social, political and economic contexts, often associated with strong communities. However, not all strong communities exert the effects of social capital in respect of business activities. This paper assesses government programmes to promote collaboration amongst SMEs for improving innovation capacity by increasing social capital through networking. It shows that, for a sizeable proportion of programme-funded firms in Denmark, Ireland and Wales (U.K.) social capital building was associated with enhanced business, knowledge and innovation performance. Of particular importance was the opportunity afforded to firms for linkage with external innovation networks, and the build-up of embeddedness, or the institutional basis for the enhancement of social capital. As a consequence of discovering the advantages of social capital, over a third of respondents planned to continue to develop it in future, in many cases funding such activities privately rather than calling on the public purse.     

Differences between Presidents' and Sales Managers' Perceptions of the Industry Environment and Firm Strategy in Small Industrial Firms: Relationship to Performance Satisfaction

The industrial sales force is the primary source of information about the competitive environment. Differences of perceptions of that environment between the national sales manager and the firm president in small industrial firms may reflect inadequate environmental information input into strategic decision-making. The sales force is a major element in implementation of strategy and differences between perceptions of firm strategy may reflect inadequate coordination and communication between the chief strategy decision-maker and the manager who is responsible for implementing that strategy in the market place. It would be expected that these differences in perceptions would impact negatively strategy formulation and execution resulting in unsatisfactory firm performance. This study surveyed the environmental and strategy perceptions of presidents and national sales managers in small to medium-sized industrial firms as well as presidents' satisfaction with firm profitability and marketing/sales effectiveness. The average absolute difference in environment perceptions has a negative relationship with satisfaction with profit. The average absolute difference in strategy perceptions has a negative relationship with marketing/sales effectiveness. This latter relationship is especially strong in an environment high in capital spending variation and for larger firms. The authors suggest implications for managers based on these results.     

Planning and Performance of Small and Medium Enterprise Operators in a Country in Transition

This paper examines the relationship between planning and performance of small and medium enterprise operators in a country in economic transition. The literature on planning–performance relationship reports mixed findings. In a period of uncertainty, as exemplified by conditions of economic difficulties, one would expect firms to do more planning. On the contrary, our study shows that economic difficulties do not encourage firms to plan seriously. Our study also shows that firms that plan do not necessarily experience increased performance, with the exception of the manufacturing sector. Other findings of the study include a significant gender difference in the planning sophistication of small firms in Ghana, with firms managed or owned by males having sophisticated planning compared with female-managed or female-owned businesses. Size did not moderate planning performance in our study. Planning affected performance equally in both large and small firms in our study. We found no difference among the planning clusters for education. Firms with the highest growth in sales had low-planning sophistication. This study contributes to our understanding and appreciation of situations in which planning does not necessarily add significant value to organizations (by way of increased performance).     

The Internationalization of Small and Medium-Sized Firms

This paper contributes to the existing research by integrating the notions of organizational learning and entrepreneurial orientation into the body of international entrepreneurship. Our primary framework combines learning theory and the new venture theory of internationalization to study the extent to which small and medium-sized companies engage in international activities. We found that the firms’ international learning effort and entrepreneurial orientation are positively associated with internationalization intent whereas domestic learning effort is negatively related with internationalization intent. Overall, our results suggest (1) that intensive knowledge renewal and exploitation regarding foreign markets and the internationalization process itself may increase internationalization by affecting the perceptions of opportunities offered by further international expansion, and (2) that firms with an entrepreneurial mindset may be more likely to develop a long-term, substantial presence in the international arena, compared to firms that are more reactive or conservative.     

Transmission of Risk-Averse Behavior in Small Firms

Small-sized firms are typically more entrepreneurial and engage in more innovation and risk-taking behavior. For that reason they are considered the engines of future economic growth. One policy for stimulating such activity is to provide government contracts for small firms. However, such contracts as typically written result in increased risk-averse behavior on the part of small firms out of a desire by government officials to shift the risk to the firms. This, in turn results in a reduced level of innovative and entrepreneurial activity. To eliminate the disincentive to engage in innovation and entrepreneurial activity, government needs to bear the risk associated with such contracts. One possible solution, given the natural risk aversion of elected officials, is to engage in a portfolio approach to small firm contracts by which the government can diversify away some of the risk.