This thesis contributes to a field of scholarly research that seems to be receiving increasing attention, especially in recent times, although one has to acknowledge that there is still a severe lack of understanding. It is generally believed that the vast majority of research is still focused on large corporations, given their visibility and individual impact on the society, and this is particularly true in the re-search on sustainability and responsibility. In the course of this work, an extensive review of the relevant literature was conducted, including a holistic systematic analysis of a sample of leading small business and entrepreneurship journals, fol-lowed by an in-depth, narrative review based on a much broader selection of articles from various sources. The review revealed that there is little research on sustainability and responsibility in SMEs in Germany and that the vast majority of this research is quantitative in nature. The aim of this research is to, thus, develop an in-depth understanding of the sustainability and responsibility engagement of manufacturing SMEs in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg and, hence, also present and analyse the views of the participants in this research. Manufacturing SMEs were selected as the focal sample as the sector is very important to the regional community and it can be assumed that, given the nature of their operations, they are in some ways engaged in sustainability activities. For this reason, an interview-study with 30 participants from the SME sector was conducted, underpinned by an interpretive research paradigm. The interviewees included owner-managers (OMs) and managing directors (MDs) from a purposively created sample of SMEs. It must be noted that the focus is not on addressing some CSR role models, but on the ‘ordinary’ SME in-stead. The findings of this research are multifaceted. It was found that many SMEs in the sample tend to follow an extreme, long-term perspective based on a special ethos or values, such as fairness, honesty and trust. There seems to be a consider-able reservation towards the business principles of large corporations. The re-search provides an in-depth discussion on various sustainability dimensions identified in the data. This includes embeddedness in the local community, which varies considerably between the participating firms; focus on employees, which tendsto be seen as the most important resource, and caring for them is for most participants an essential point; and engagement in environmental issues, which tends to be of lower importance for participants except in the case of practices that directly lead to positive economic results. Overall, the research identifies that economic considerations dominate the worldview of participants. However, firms are not considered instruments of short-term profits; instead, natural, long-term development of firms is the overall goal. The research additionally finds that some SMEs in the sample are motivated to find a balance between informal and formal management approaches. In total, one can conclude that the behaviour of SMEs can-not be directly considered to be related to the principles of sustainable development. However, the sample firms and their behaviour are definitely closer to a responsible way of doing business in comparison to many large corporations which also tend to affect many SMEs negatively through their market power and price pressure. This research provides an insight into the world of (owner)-managers of SMEs, thus contributing to a field that is currently dominated by descriptive quantitative research in Germany.

This research is based on an explorative study of cultural factors and their impact on people management strategies of Pakistani-owned SMEs in the UK. The topic of the research has been investigated through in-depth literature review, case studies and questionnaire-based field survey. The literature review provided theoretical insights to the study and empirical investigation generated a wide range of information about practical scenario of these companies. The triangulation approach of the study helped in offsetting weaknesses of a specific method by strengths of other methods. Keeping in view nature and requirements of the research topic, the researcher preferred inductive approach (theory building) instead of deductive approach (theory testing). The deductive approach is usually linked with natural sciences; whereas, inductive approach works well with social sciences. The current area of the research was purely subjective (closely linked with social sciences) requiring qualitative data through case studies and field surveys, therefore the researcher preferred interpretative philosophy and inductive approach which proved very effective in data gathering and analyzing process. The empirical investigation discovered a range of cultural factors such as religion, values, beliefs, traditions, cross-culture imperatives, languages and communication patterns playing a pivotal role in evolving and shaping HR related strategic frameworks of Pakistani-owned SMEs in the UK. The study emphasised the role of entrepreneurs as cross-cultural mediators seeking to develop their multiple identities to deal better with their multi-ethnic employees and customers. The triangulation of integrating the findings emerged out of case studies, field survey and literature review reflect a close resemblance between results of case studies and questionnaire survey; however, some dissimilarities have been found between empirical results and the results derived out of the literature review. The study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by furthering our substantive understanding about HRM, culture and cultural influences on HR strategies and practices of SMEs. It provides some practical lessons to SMEs in the UK in general and ethnic minority SMEs in particular. Also the study paves the way for students and researchers to conduct further research in the area to overcome any limitations found in the findings.

There is no moral pedestal for being a fair trade SME, when it comes to building value or competitiveness. The original concept of fair trade may not have changed, but today it has evolved beyond simply ‘black and white/in or out’. Indeed, the UK SME, just as their larger competitors, may not be Fairtrade© exclusive, whether that be in niche or mainstream markets. Furthermore, to trade using fair trade credentials alone will be insufficient, when their larger rivals can achieve economies of scale and through availability and convenience, target the ‘feel good’ consumer. Whilst Fairtrade© brings the poor farmer and shopper together and arguably ticks the box for large retailers, it is less clear ‘what is in it’ for the UK fair trade SME. The purpose of this thesis is to critically explore the tangible and intangible push-pull factors that enable them to grow and build resilience within a dynamic, but highly competitive ‘virtuous’ market. It will consider how SMEs balance their human, values based decisions with the pressure to remain viable and whether in reality, they simply make pragmatic mental trade-offs to secure their future. The research is exploratory, inductive and qualitative from the epistemological and ontological position of interpretivism and social constructivism; drawing upon grounded theory to support data coding and analysis. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 13 SMEs in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria and London between December 2012 and June 2013. A coding framework was designed to classify those significant and interconnected factors and a typology of fair trade SMEs that reflects that one size ‘does not fit all’, within this growing and strategic market. Furthermore, through a values based orientation which extends across the supply chain, it will also show how ‘responsible business’ is a reality, through the creation of ‘shared value’.

This thesis intends to explore the process of foreign investment and entry mode choices of small firms from Pakistan. Pakistan being an epicure of global terrorism and ethnictension is an economy that is driven by small sector. The small sector is facing extreme difficulties to expand their international operations. This needs a comprehensive research to see beyond basic infrastructural impediments to small firms in Pakistan. What are the major behavioural and analytical impedimentsto their international expansion? Cognitive biases are the behavioural impediments and so far there is no research in Pakistan in general and in advanced countries in particular, to see how cognitive heuristics and biases affectthe foreign investment decision process? Entry mode is said to be the building block of internationalisation, and due to their small size, resource limitations and lack of international knowledge, small firms often try to obtain first-mover advantages through strategic alliances or joint venture operations abroad. Post entry speed is the international development of small firm, once the process of entry mode choice is completed. Entrepreneurial managers perceive cooperative modes and other equity investments as high-risk oriented strategies due to the legal and moral hazards associated with co-operative modes of entry. This creates a dilemma as to how to maintain a sustainable post-entry international speed? The absence of a unique set of enduring dispositional preferences is striking. There is no research that explores the role of entrepreneurial cognition/biases in small firm entry mode choices process. This applies particularly when small firms expand their international operations from emerging to developed economies. Based on the integration of cognitive capabilities and the Dunning eclectic framework, this study develops a rigorous model by introducing the new resource value generation taxonomies, and explores the impact of cognitive biasness in small firm entry mode choice process and cognitive dynamism in post-entry speed. A sub-modal for the enquiry of cognitive biases in foreign investment decision process is also introduced. This sub model by qualitative enquiry found the significant role or heuristics and biases in foreign investment decision process. The data was collected from a stratified sample of three major provinces of Pakistan through postal and drop-off survey/personal visits. Ten in-depth personal and telephonic interviewswere conducted to triangulate the entry mode choice process with speed model. Triangulation of positivist and interpretivist approach confirms the validity and reliability of the research findings. The dependent variable is dichotomous for post-entry speed. Logistic regression for post-entry speed is used to analyse the quantitative data set. Foreign investment and/or entry mode choice process are the simultaneous terms used in the entire thesis. The findings support the central role of biases in foreign investment decision process and ownership, location and cognitive advantages in the post-entry speed. The new value generation entry mode choice taxonomies (high and low value generation modes) and cognitive biases during the three stages of foreign investment decision process introduced in this research, contributes significantly to present literature. Complexities associates with IB research highlight the need for further empirical, cross-cultural and longitudinal studies. One of the most important challenges that the managers in small firm in developing economies face is to find new ways to enhance the probability of their exports‘ success through a suitable entry mode choice process (foreign investment decision process). This research through careful deliberation presents useful implications that will enhance the international activity of small firms from developing economies in general and advanced economies in particular. The findings are generalizable because the cognitive biases emerge as behavioural and analytical impediments in any event, process and/or in any system of relationships. The dispositional tendencies of managers identified in this thesis are the source of mitigating the negative effects of the biases. Thus this study is unique in its nature that contributes to both economic and behavioural theories.

In the late nineteen eighties, Hills proposed that marketing scholars should pay far more attention to entrepreneurship and the smaller enterprise. He founded an annual research symposium and associated proceedings published under the title of Research at the Marketing/Entrepreneurship Interface. The symposia and proceedings still flourish and both the Academy of Marketing in the UK and the American Marketing Association have special interest groups for this area. This thesis is concerned with the contribution that entrepreneurship can make to understanding this interface. Without a robust definition of entrepreneurship, the interface simply becomes a study of a very common and disparate organisational form - Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). There is no shame in this for they deserve our interest, support and help. Without an understanding of the entrepreneurship component of the interface that help and support might be less effective than we, and they, would desire. Small business is not a little large business, they operate in very different circumstances with very much fewer resources to hand, and, because of who they are may have very different motivations and skill sets. Not necessarily worse but different. So entrepreneurial marketing might offer different insights, and help, compared to a standard academic approach to small business. This is a PhD by published work and twenty-three submissions are organised into four themes and form a core for discussion. The first theme considers appropriate definitions of entrepreneurship and the role they play in conceptualising the interface. The second theme considers how adopting an entrepreneurial marketing approach could guide and inform the SME in two particular respects: addressing critical situations and developing and maintaining appropriate relationships. This theme is considering entrepreneurial marketing within the SME. The third theme considers firstly entrepreneurial marketing extended away from the SME to larger organisations in both public and private ownership and to a particular form of public art where participants can be small or large and in either public or private ownership. Secondly the experience of organisations within a cluster and SMEs within a conflict zone are considered. The distinguishing focus of this third theme is that it extends the interface away from the traditional focus on SMEs. Whilst it was natural for the interface to arise out of a desire to understand a neglected organisational form in marketing – it can be applied in other contexts. The final theme considers how the author’s conceptualisation of the interface has informed their teaching and the implications for practical business support. A fundamental argument that is made in respect of understanding the role of entrepreneurship within entrepreneurial marketing is that we should not treat entrepreneurship as an absolute attribute which would direct us into classifying people simply into entrepreneurs as opposed to non-entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs range from the exceptional ‘stellar’ entrepreneur to those who are imitative of current market offerings and we should work across this range appropriately. Having discussed both an appropriate definition and role for entrepreneurship within the marketingentrepreneurship interface the implications of such a view are illustrated through considering the different contexts discussed in themes two and three above and reflecting upon the delivery of teaching programmes based partly or wholly on the notion of the marketing-entrepreneurship interface. The work is a critique of the role of entrepreneurship within the interface. The contexts selected and discussed draw out practical lessons for a wide range of individuals from undergraduates through SMEs to larger organisations in either private or public ownership.

Over the past few years, the accelerated internationalisation by SMEs from Emerging Markets (EM-SMEs) have been facilitating by the phenomenon of the Cloud Computing. This technology as a new strategic approach has become in the centre of attention of many scholars and pragmatists. Despite prevalent use of Cloud-Computing Utilisation (CCU) and fast-paced growth of using this technology among the EM-SMEs, yet few studies have been conducted to investigate the effectiveness of utilising this new technology to mitigate the internationalisation barriers of the EM-SMEs towards their accelerated internationalisation. Therefore, this research study endeavours to explore the effectiveness of the CCU in mitigation of the EM-SMEs’ internationalisation-barriers towards an accelerated internationalisation. The research survey was conducted online by SurveyMonkey with the use of random and snowball sampling methods for the collection of data from the top managers of 227 SMEs in different industries in two contexts of Iran and Turkey. A quantitative research methodology was conducted with the use of self-administrated questionnaires. In addition, the structural equation modelling (SEM) was used in data analysis by the use of IBM® SPSS® Amos software. The key findings of this research study shed light on the effectiveness of the CCU for the EM-SMEs to accelerate their internationalisation. The findings of this research confirm that the CCU enables the EM-SMEs to mitigate informational, operational, marketing and environmental barriers and consequently this technology enables the EM-SMEs to accelerate their internationalisation. This research study contributes theoretically in both International Business (IB) and Information System (IS) respectively by identifying and classifying the EM-SMEs internationalisation barriers, and by providing and confirming a series of effective the CCU’s solutions to mitigate the EM-SMEs’ internationalisation barriers. Moreover, this research study contributes methodologically by applying the SEM data analysis with the use of AMOS software in order to investigate the effectiveness of the CCU as well as quantifying the magnitude level of EM-SEMs’ integration with CC based on the definition of cloud computing (CC) which has been defined by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, 2011). Furthermore, the empirical outcomes of this research study contribute that the CCU facilitates the EM-SMEs to mitigate their informational, operational, marketing and environmental barriers towards an accelerated internationalisation. Therefore, this research contributes empirically to the EM-SMEs’ decision-makers and the cloud service providers (CSPs) in order to get the most out of this phenomenon.

How does the SME internationalisation network develop across institutional distance and why? In order to understand and explain the process of SME internationalisation network development between a developed economy (the UK) and an emerging one (China), a conceptual research framework was first developed from the integration of theories of small firm internationalisation (Child and Hsieh 2014; Coviello 2006; Jones and Coviello 2005), social networks (Burt 1995; 2011; Jack 2010; Slotte-Kock and Coviello 2010) and institutions (North 2009; Peng 2003; Scott 2008). Welch et al.'s (2011) 'contextualised causal explanation perspective’ was then applied in an empirical context, through the in-depth study of three cases of SME network development between Scotland and China, which resulted in findings that underline the interconnectedness between formal and informal institutions and their effects on the phenomenon. The thesis ultimately offers a causal explanation process model of SME internationalisation network development across institutional distance, answering calls from the internationalisation literature (Jones et al 2011) for a greater understanding of how and why institutions (Eden 2010) - and informal institutions (Sartor and Beamish 2014) in particular – matter.

The influence of ‘credit crunch’ on Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) has been of concern to the government, regulators, banks, the enterprises and the public. Using a large dataset of UK SMEs’ records covering the early period of the ‘credit crunch’, the influence of the ‘credit crunch’ on SMEs have been studied. It uses cross-sectional method, panel data models and GAM to provide a detailed examination of SMEs performance. Both newly established and matured SMEs, segmented by age, are considered separately. The data contains 79 variables which covered obligors’ general condition, financial information, directors’ portfolio and other relevant credit histories. The ‘credit crunch’ is a typical ‘black swan’ phenomenon. As such there is a need to examine whether the stepwise logistic model, the industries prime modelling tool, could deal with the sudden change in SMEs credit risk. Whilst it may be capable of modelling the situation alternatives models may be more appropriate. It provides a benchmark for comparison to other models and shows how well the industry’s standard model performs. Given cross-sectional models only provide aggregative level single time period analysis, panel models are used to study SMEs performance through the crisis period. To overcome the pro-cyclic feature of logistic model, macroeconomic variables were added to panel data model. This allows examination of how economic conditions influence SMEs during ‘credit crunch’. The use of panel data model leads to a discussion of fixed and random effects estimation and the use of explanatory macroeconomic variables. The panel data model provides a detailed analyse of SMEs’ behaviour during the crisis period. Under parametric models, especially logistic regression, data is usually transformed to allow for the non-linear correlation between independent variable and dependent variable. However, this brings difficulty in understanding influence of each independent variable’s marginal effects. Another way of dealing with this is to add non-parametric effects. In this study, Generalized Additive Models (GAM) allows for non-parametric effects. A natural extension of logistic regression is a GAM model with logistic link function. In order to use the data in their original state an alternative method of processing missing values is proposed, which avoids data transformation, such as the use of weights of evidence (WoE). GAM with original data could derive a direct marginal trend and plot how explanatory variables influence SMEs’ ‘bad’ rate. Significant non-parametric effects are found for both ‘start-ups’ and ‘non-start-ups’. Using GAM models results in higher prediction accuracy and improves model transparency by deriving explanatory variables’ marginal effects.

Servitization has been a recognized business phenomenon since the late 1980s to innovate a business’s capabilities and processes to create value for their customer through service. Recent technological advances, particularly in the capabilities being developed by the Internet of Things (IoT) could be an enabler for a servitzation transition at an organization. Servitization, enabled by the Internet of Things (IoT), has not been considered in the context of Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Due to the traits of SMEs, the potential opportunities from effectively servitizing their business models and the accessibility and affordability of IoT sensors, equipment and tools, there is a gap to be explored. This research provides an understanding of the many challenges SMEs face to remain competitive. Additionally, the research develops a framework that can help to overcome some of these challenges through the utilization of a Servitization business model and IoT technology and capability. The investigation and development of IoT-enabled Servitization for SMEs could potentially lead to new knowledge and innovation. Initially, main traits of SMEs were identified and then aspects of IoT and servitization were ascertained to find those that best align with the SME unique traits. From this understanding, a framework was developed that will allow Small to Medium sized Enterprises to utilise the technology and capabilities from the IoT in order to develop servitization within their business. This framework was then further developed through a longitudinal case study with an SME and validated by a range of industry stakeholders. The outcome resulted in a conceptual framework, based on academic literature, evolved in a real-world case study, and validated by professionals and stakeholders. This validation was conducted through the dissemination of the material on a professional program MSc module, presentation of the research at international conferences, and an event held with regional SMEs to gain insight on the final version of the framework. The framework can be used by SMEs or those consulting SMEs to help them develop strategy that creates value added services in their business that are enabled by the IoT.

The study examines the role of government venture funding in facilitating entrepreneurship and innovation. In particular, the study integrates financial and behavioural perspectives in a unified framework to analyse the determinants and outcomes of innovation investments designed to help small firms commercialise their research and development activities. On the one hand, it draws upon real options reasoning theory to understand the effects of various resource allocation strategies on investment yield and firm performance. On the other hand, it uses signalling theory and the attention- based view to examine which individual-, project- and firm-level characteristics affect early- and late- stage funding allocation decisions, and whether these signals are also accurate predictors of investment yield and firm performance. To investigate government investment patterns, 367 projects from 275 firms that participated in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programme administered by the National Health Institute in the U.S. were analysed over a seven-year period from 2006 to 2012 using a combination of statistical and econometric techniques. First, the study finds that the formal real options reasoning (ROR) structure evident in the composition and execution of the government venture funding programme is only intuitively underpinned by the real options logic of decision-making. The results reveal that high initial funding commitment and continuation of government venture funding have a diminishing effect on return on investment, whereas consistent matching of funding decisions in line with ROR allows to extract value from staged investments. Second, drawing on signalling theory and attention-based view helps uncover discrepancies between prescribed and actual investment behaviour. Third, to benefit from options-like investments, firms require different combinations of skills and capabilities depending on their experience and the target performance outcome. In sum, the study adds to the empirical body of literature analysing the tension between economic logic of efficient resource allocation and behavioural and cognitive effects on rational sense- making. The analysis delineates boundary conditions of real options reasoning in the context of government venture funding, which provides important implications for strategic management theory and research policy.