Narrow Results

The common argument for the small business is that there simply is no strategy; that small businesses react heuristically to events, guided by the whims and passions of the owner-manager. Strategy, however, can be looked at from a behavioural perspective, as opposed to the more normative strategic planning schools that small firms rarely abide by. This concept of strategy as 'behaviour' encompasses the actions of the owner-manager, the context of the small firm, and the consequences of the actions taken. It looks at strategy as part deliberate and part emergent, allowing for the inclusion of both external influences and internal decision making. Grounded theory research on small firms in Malta has in fact shown strategy to be a dynamic phenomenon, one that can be viewed as a set of defined pathways between identifiable life cycle states. The paper shall outline the research findings that have identified five distinct patterns of small firm strategic behaviour, each with its own unique trajectory and performance implications. Understanding which strategic pathway a small firm belongs to allows for a comprehensive insight into the firm's competitive behaviour, and a prediction of the consequences of that behaviour.

This collaborative paper aims to reflexively evaluate the versatile and comprehensive application of grounded theory, comparatively using two studies researching the strategic behaviour of small organisations within a small island state. The methodological stance adopted is that of practitioner researchers, critically analysing the research positioning and processes in two large grounded theory studies that mapped the competitive behaviours of some 100 small businesses in the small island EU state of Malta. The study evaluates grounded theory processes and actions taken in the two studies, depicting the systematic collection, comparison and analysis of the data gathered, concept generation, continuous interaction between actions and context, use of in-depth interviews combined with quantitative data, coding, mapping and categorisation of the data collected, and the use of MAXQDA as a viable software tool to carry out grounded theory. This practitioner research study comprises detailed practice-related implications for the use of grounded theory in researching small organisations, in a manner that a novice grounded theory practitioner can adopt and a manager in a small business can appreciate.

This study examines the causes and dynamics in the creation of business ventures by minority nascent entrepreneurs. Minority business enterprises are an important source of job creation and innovation in the US economy, as well as economic development engines in their respective communities. However, little is understood about the unique motivations, business strategies and plans in the early stage of their venture formation. This paper utilizes the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) dataset in investigating black and Hispanic entrepreneurial entry as compared to white nascent entrepreneurs around three important dimensions: motivation, business strategy, and community resources. It is found that blacks are highly driven by a range of motivational factors while Hispanics value intergenerational inheritance and role models in business ownership. Both groups heavily focus on a niche market strategy by lowering prices, serving markets missed by others and locating close to customers. Contrary to expectation, their perceptions of community resources are not more favorable than whites. Public policy implications are discussed.

The study examines the mediating role of competitive strategies (cost leadership and differentiation) in the marketing capability-performance relationship using data from 264 micro and small family firms in Ghana. The bootstrap method for exploring mediating relationships was used to examine the hypotheses. The findings indicate that although differentiation influence performance, cost leadership does not influence performance after controlling for firm age and firm size. However, marketing capability significantly influence performance. The findings further revealed that marketing capabilities do not have any indirect relationship on performance through cost leadership. However, the results indicated that marketing capability influenced firm performance through differentiation strategy. The findings indicate the need to implement both competitive strategy and marketing capability to enhance performance of micro and small family businesses.

There is a growing concern among consumers for preserving the environment without compromising the current lifestyle. In this context, organizations are looking for a sustainable business model that can fulfil their business objectives effectively. The concept of the circular economy is emerging as a solution that can help the minimization of the ill effect of industrialization. The circular economy is efficiently adopted and implemented through circular practices. However, the adoption of circular economy practices is not easy for the industries, and it requires a comprehensive strategy. Therefore, this study aims to identify and evaluate the key strategies to accomplish circular economy practices in the present-day context. In order to fulfil the research objective, this study identified 11 significant strategies that are needed for the adoption of circular economy practices. These strategies are identified using an integrated approach of the literature review and focus group discussion with experts. Further, these key strategies are evaluated using the fuzzy DEMATEL and developed a causal relationship among the strategies. The applied method has also classified the strategies into cause and effect group. The cause group comprises the five strategies, while effect group contain the six strategies. The finding suggests that “management involvement, support and commitment” and “creating a vision and goals for circular economy” are prominent strategies. This study will facilitate the managers to make the action plan for implementing the circular practices in order to shift towards the circular economy.

Generating innovations is one of the key success factors of companies and organizations. To constantly create new innovations, an effective innovation strategy must be implemented by companies. Therefore, a variation of different strategic frameworks has been formulated. One framework which combines the idea of Open Innovation with startup-based interaction is the startup-orientated cooperative innovation (SOCI) strategy. The PANDA initiative of Fresenius University of Applied Science can be characterized as a coupled process of the SOCI framework. This paper presents the results of a survey, analyzing the impact of PANDA on the innovation strategies of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry based on the innovation attributes defined by the Oslo Manual 2018. The survey was used to compare 12 PANDA project evaluations implementing by European chemical and pharmaceutical companies. The main results of this study show that PANDA represents an effective tool to foster early-stage innovation development and indicates general effectiveness of SOCI strategies for chemical and pharmaceutical companies.

The study aims to scientifically substantiate the application of the scenario approach in predicting the development of the agri-food sector in rural areas. The conceptual novelty of the study is that it develops a scenario forecasting algorithm for the development of the agri-food sector of rural areas in the digital economy. It also clarifies methodological approaches and recommendations for forecasting production volumes of certain agri-food products at the zonal level. The paper shows that digitalization is one of the critical factors that directly ensure an increase in agribusiness efficiency in the current conditions in agriculture. An assessment of the impact of digital transformation processes on the activities of agricultural producers is given, and the advantages of using modern digital technologies in the agricultural sector are highlighted. Furthermore, the results of scenario forecasting of production volumes of agri-food products by farms of all categories are presented in the example of the non-black soil zone of the Republic of Bashkortostan. The study’s preliminary results are as follows: the world experience in scientific research on the use of digital technologies in the activities of agricultural producers was generalized.

This paper examines the relationship of 40 practices of innovation management lifted from Tidd et al. (2013, p. 634) in 477 Ecuadorian companies. The sample is from the period 2013–2014 and are divided into micro, small, medium and large enterprises. The management practices are divided a priori into 5 constructs (strategy, processes, organisation, relationships and learning). We then carry out a descriptive analysis, where the degree of the implementation of practices in the entirety of the businesses are stipulated. Later, we test a model with inferential analysis (multiple regression analysis) where the degrees of significance of the practices are determined within each construct and their relation to the size of the companies. The innovation management potential in the Ecuadorian business environment is also discussed. The results show, that companies are far from displaying constant management practices in innovation, as such, general recommendations for companies in the study are given.