Pierre angulaire majeure de l'économie libanaise, les banques au Liban maintiennent un rôle crucial dans le développement économique durable du pays. Les acteurs du système bancaire libanais constituent plus qu’une force humaine dans l'élaboration ; mais un véritable atout et filet de sécurité pour le système accouplé avec leur expertise et leur longue histoire de succès et de croissance (Barazy 2012). L'essentiel de cette recherche se concentre sur les principes de gouvernance d'entreprise au sein du système bancaire libanais en général avec une concentration sur les caractéristiques entrepreneuriales du conseil d'administration en particulier et les effets de ces caractéristiques sur lesdites performances. Basé sur des données primaires collectées au cours de la période comprise entre 2010 et 2014 de 55 des 70 institutions financières à caractère familiale, cette recherche montre que les attributs de la théorie de l'agence sur la dualité de leadership, sont des facteurs affectant directement la performance financière / As a major cornerstone of the Lebanese economy, banks in Lebanon have played and maintain a crucial role in the sustainable economic development of the country. The players in the Lebanese banking system constitute more than a human force in the making; but a real asset and safety net to the system coupled with their expertise and long history of success and growth (Barazy 2012). The gist of this research centers on corporate governance principles within the Lebanese banking system in general with a focuses on the entrepreneurship concept of the board of directors characteristics in specific and the effects of these characteristics on bank performance. Based on primary data collected over the period between 2010 and 2014 from 55 of about 90 banks banks operating in Lebanon, this research further investigates the topics of agency theory and leadership duality as additional factors directly affecting banks’ financial performance

Researchers have identified a wide range of factors that affect organisational creativity. The leadership behaviour of top managers is one of the most important. However, few studies have empirically examined the relationship between the leadership behaviour of these leaders and creativity at the organisational level. In this study, a style of leadership labelled “entrepreneurial” is considered in the context of Chinese SMEs, by considering its potential to create an environment in which creative activities can flourish. The entrepreneurial leader is central to the enterprise, creating visionary scenarios and facilitating a group of capable members to enact their vision, further fostering organisational creativity. As organisational creativity is important for business success, there is a significant need for research into the impact of entrepreneurial leadership. The study identifies gaps in the literature. First, a number of studies have contributed significant insights into the antecedents of employee creative behaviours and performance, but predominantly concentrate on the level of the individual employee. Hence, an investigation into the antecedents of organisational creativity beyond this level is needed. Second, the field of entrepreneurial leadership remains in the embryonic stages of conceptual and theoretical development. Considering leadership as one of the antecedents of organisational creativity, existing research mainly focuses on the mainstreams of leadership style as the determinant. Third, SMEs, as the major incubator of entrepreneurial leadership, provide a valuable research environment as they foster organisational creativity. Fourth, there is a dearth of literature on the mechanisms through which creativity may be enhanced in Chinese SMEs. Therefore, further research has a valuable contribution to make to the field. More specifically, this dissertation considers the following three research questions: RQ1: What are the characteristics exhibited by the entrepreneurial leaders to facilitate creativity in Chinese SMEs? RQ2: Do entrepreneurial leader’s behaviours enhance SME’s creativity performance? RQ3: How do these entrepreneurial leadership behaviours affect an SME’s creativity, which in turns stimulates their firm performance? Based on these research questions, the researcher further set a range of specific objectives: 1. To develop a model of entrepreneurial leadership in SMEs; 2. To understand entrepreneurial leaders’ background and behavioural characteristics as well as their firms’ creative capabilities and performance within the targeted sample in Chinese SME context; 3. To identify the mechanisms through which entrepreneurial leadership influences SMEs’ creativity; 4. To investigate the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and Chinese SMEs’ creativity as well as their firm performance. To move forward with these aims, a theoretical model of entrepreneurial leadership is developed and the manner in which the entrepreneurial leadership styles of top managers directly and indirectly affect creativity within SMEs is investigated. A mixed methods research approach is applied, including a combination of a qualitative study (case study) and a quantitative study (questionnaire survey). In the qualitative study, case studies of four firms (in Zhejiang) were conducted and interviews were carried out with the firms’ top leaders and managers. The qualitative analysis creates an item pool for the scale development of entrepreneurial leadership in SMEs context. In the quantitative study, a pilot study was first conducted with a sample of 274 employees from various industries. Afterwards the scale of entrepreneurial leadership in SMEs context was validated and finalised. The sample for the final questionnaire survey was 139 Chinese SMEs in Zhejiang Province in various industries. The top leader and two middle managers from each firm were invited to participate in the surveys. Therefore, two survey questionnaires were used to collect data (one was designed for the top leaders and the other was for the managers). The findings support a direct and positive link between a style of leadership that has been labeled as “entrepreneurial” and organisational creativity. They also indicate that entrepreneurial leadership has significant and positive relations with empowerment, organisation-based psychological ownership, and employee’s entrepreneurial behaviour. Empowerment and employee’s entrepreneurial behaviour have been found to have a significant and positive relationship with organisational creativity, but organisation-based psychological ownership has an insignificant relation with organisational creativity. Moreover, the impact of entrepreneurial leadership on empowerment in the context of an SME is moderated by the level of trust such that the relationship will be stronger when trust is high rather than low. Furthermore, the findings also support the positive relationship between organisational creativity of an SME its performance. Three contributions are made to the leadership literature. First, successful business performance in the 21st century environment needs a new form of leadership, and entrepreneurial leadership may be able to provide it. Second, by examining empowerment, organisation-based psychological ownership, and employee’s entrepreneurial behaviour as mediating variables, the study enhances understanding of the mechanisms through which entrepreneurial leadership promotes organisational creativity as well as firm performance. Third, this study contributes to the understanding of the applicability of leadership in the Chinese context, helping advance entrepreneurial leadership research in emerging market economies. The findings may help entrepreneurial leaders to recognise the influence of their unique cultural heritage and organisational context on their leadership styles. This study discusses the implications of the findings and identifies possible directions for future research.

A quality management (QM) model is broadly accepted as a tool of managerial approaches in order to measure and improve the performance of the organisation. However, the existing QM models, such as the Thailand Quality Award (TQA), may not be appropriate to employ in Thai Small, Medium and Large Enterprises (SMLEs). Due to the TQA‟s vigorous requirements, there are only a few Thai companies that have achieved the TQA. Moreover, recent research studies on the QM model have focused on other Thai industries and not directly Thai SMLEs, whereas Thai SMLEs generate a lot of income for the country and require an effective QM model in order to improve their organisational performance continuously. The aim of this current research is to develop and evaluate a QM model for assessing organisational performance in Thai SMLEs. The research methodology used in this research involves two main studies. Firstly, the theoretical study aims to develop a conceptual QM model and a conceptual Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) model. Secondly, the empirical study aims to validate a conceptual QM model to be an implemented QM model and to assess a conceptual CFA model to be an implemented CFA model in order to determine the weights of quality elements. An implemented QM model integrated with the weights of quality elements becomes a finalised QM model according to the aim of the research. The important findings of this research are the finalised QM model named as the Thai Small Medium and Large Enterprises Quality (TSMLEQ) model. The TSMLEQ model is composed of 14 elements and their weights: Leadership (53), Strategic Planning & Policy (75), Human Resource Management (71), Partnerships & Resources (69), Knowledge Management (71), Innovation Management (76), Technology Management (66), Process Management (81), Customer Satisfaction (78), Employee Satisfaction (70), Society Results (67), Business Performance Results (76), Continuous Improvement (78), and Measurement & Analysis (69). The main originality of this research compared to the previous study is the determination of the most and least important quality elements, which are Process Management and Leadership, respectively. In order to improve the performance of the organisation, the companies can use the TSMLEQ model as a self-assessment tool to evaluate the level of the quality management implementation. The self-assessment can engage the TQM programme within the companies because it supports as a baseline and path of continuous improvement. The criteria of self-assessment (or quality elements) of the TSMLEQ model are based on the concepts of TQM that are similar to the world-class performance criteria such as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) and the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). The contributions of this research comprise three aspects. Firstly, Thai industry can be benefitted by adopting the results of this research in order to implement quality management effectively. Secondly, academics in quality management can deploy research methodology used in this research in order to develop a QM model for their research objectives. Thirdly, the findings of this research can be the source of the study of quality management in Thailand and other countries. Keywords: Quality management model, quality elements, Thai small medium and large enterprises, weights, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis

SMEs are slow adopters of new technologies and understandably so because they are entangled in a vicious cycle of poverty. It is even more so for SMEs located in developing markets such as the sub-Saharan Africa. SMEs in these areas are faced with several difficult institutional and cultural bottlenecks which often impede their access to and use of new technologies. In Nigeria, the recently introduced cashless policy is one of many strategies intended to enhance SMEs' chances in the global e-commerce market as much as the general Nigerian economy. Studies reveal that Nigerian SMEs are slow to adopt and use this new technological innovation called the e-payment system (EPS) even when it can improve their chances to participate successfully in e-commerce. However, there is little in the literature to understand why and what is needed to be done to encourage and facilitate their participation in adopting and using this technology. This area of study has not been sufficiently explored. Thus, this thesis fills the void and explores the factors influencing EPS adoption and extent of use by SMEs in Nigeria. The study develops an integrated model drawing from the Technology-Organisation- Environment (TOE) framework and Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) model. We employed the mixed methods. 239 respondents were served the questionnaire. Also, 4 SMEs and two stakeholders were interviewed as a follow-up to the statistical analysis. We employed the Logistic regression analysis in addition to the personal interviews analysis. The results revealed that technological, environmental and owner/manager's factors majorly influenced the adoption of EPS among SMEs in Nigeria. The study finds that perceived benefit is the single major factor positively influencing the decision to adopt and use EPS in Nigeria. Others are owner/manager's educational level and knowledge in IT. The study also finds that perceived complexity, perceived insecurity and lack of government policy are major barriers to the adoption of EPS. Age, perceived benefits, and perceived trust facilitated frequent EPS usage while age, perceived complexity and competitive pressure positively influenced the number and type of EPS channels used by SMEs in Nigeria.

SMEs in the 21 century have to cope with an increasingly dynamic and competitive environment. In order to work effectively within this environment, SMEs have to collaborate with other enterprises in forms of virtual organisations. Despite the increased interest in the area of virtual organisation collaboration, useful information is still lacking about the risk sources of virtual organisation, where the enterprise face more complicated risk threats than those in traditional enterprise due to the new form of relationships between partners. The aim of this research was to identify a risk management contribution where this research has identified key areas of risk that SMEs are likely to face when working collaboratively in VO. It also enables SMEs to understand the relative importance of these risks. A further contribution is made by use of tools (ISM and ANP) to enable SMEs to understand the inter-relationships of risk sources. Multiple analysis techniques provide triangulation of analysis results, leading to validation of results. The secondary research showed all of the risk sources identified in the relevant literature and some of the relationships between them, whilst the primary research addressed all of the direct and indirect relationships using the Interpretive Structural Modeling. Also the primary data sources from the questionnaires and the case study shed light on the relative importance of these sources using the Analytical Network Process. Areas for further research are suggested to close the gaps and to continue enriching the research.

This thesis comprehensively explores the credit risk of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) using transactional characteristics, financial variables and market information. It contributes SMEs credit risk modelling by exploring a range of soft features, such as management capability, industrial sectors, entity type, etc. It is the first study of investigating the concept of management capability through quantitative transactional information. Firstly, models are proposed to assess the credit risk of SMEs by identifying the significant factors. To fulfill this, two studies are carried out. In the first study, logistic regression, survival analysis and ordinal regression are used to model the relationship between transformed financial variables and probability of default. Both the traditional AUROC measure and Hand Statistic are used to evaluate the performances of the models, and they both indicate that logistic regression on weights of evidence transformed data yields the best prediction. Survival model takes an extra element of the time dimension into consideration. Ordinal regression performs poorly possibly due to impact of sample sizes. The factors appeared with highest frequencies are ratios associated with liquidity and growth. The other study predicts the credit risk (‘good’ ‘bad’ and ‘indeterminate’) of the SMEs using transactional characteristics. 35000 SMEs are clustered by different clustering algorithms. It is notably found that most ‘indeterminate’ observations are clustered with ‘bad’ observation, which is different from industry habit of combining ‘indeterminate’ and ‘good’. Logistic regression performs better than ordinal regression according to AUROC measure. In addition, some key points raised in focus group interview with bank managers are seen in the modelling process as significant variables, such as sector belonging to, entity type, region/location, time associated with bank, and account conduct. Secondly, the informational bases of two major models, which are accounting based credit scoring models and Merton type models, are explored to figure out aspects which affect SMEs’ credit risk. 33 financial variables covering nine financial categories are considered. It employs other modelling frameworks rather than the often-used linear regression, which are linear regression with interactions and the Cox proportional hazard model. It is found that weak relationship exists between these two models. The two major models capture different aspects of corporate information, it is suggested that a hybrid model, which incorporate both sources of information, might be considered to predict SMEs financial health. Thirdly, management capability of SMEs is elicited by applying principal component analysis to their transactional characteristics. Management capability is a qualitative idea, and its manifestation in quantitative variables was not explored in previous research. This study indicates some success in determining management capability. It is found that financial measure (credit turnover and debit turnover) and the performance measure (number of days in excess of the account) could be considered as reflecting management capability. Good management can identify trends at a very early stage and take action to mitigate the issue.

African countries have recently experienced an extraordinary and largely unanticipated boom in the uptake of mobile phones, and increasing rates of access to the internet. This thesis investigates how and why these information and communication technologies (ICT) are being adopted for use in Tanzanian micro and small enterprises (MSEs), and explores the changes they are bringing about to the existing business culture of marginalised economies. The study covers three sub-sectors of the Tanzanian economy: perishable foodstuffs trading, the informal construction industry and the export of African blackwood carvings. The analysis is based on fieldwork undertaken over a total of 15 months in 2002 and 2003, during which time business networks were revealed by physically following entrepreneurs and their contacts operating in different locations throughout the country. Entrepreneurs were asked to draw their own comparisons between the traditional pre-ICT situation and the improved ICT access of today. The discussion is informed by the findings of semi-structured interviews with these individuals, excerpts of which are presented in the text to give voice to the entrepreneurs. Various ingenious and at times unconventional methods of access to, and appropriation of, ICT is uncovered. Together these suggest that official indicators underestimate the thirst for digital consumption, especially for mobile phones, and help explain the flourishing informal economy of handset acquisition. Internet penetration and uptake for use in business, on the other hand, is revealed to be far slower. Nevertheless, the research does reveal that a sizeable amount of poorer entrepreneurs are using a triumvirate of hired or shared ICT – mobile phones, the Internet and the ‘old’ ICT of fax – to create what can appear to be a more formal enterprise than it may actually be. The ‘mobile office’ effectively allows poorer entrepreneurs to operate without premises, thereby saving costs on rent and allowing the enterprise to remain informal. This heralds a considerable change in the working practices of a significant branch of informal sector operators who have gone unnoticed, and calls for a reconstruction and redefinition of this crucial source of entrepreneurship in developing economies. Despite the huge uptake of mobile phones in particular, the work also cautions that some traditional pre-ICT aspects of the African business culture look set to remain for some time. It becomes clear that where entrepreneurs do decide to use ICT, reputation and recommendation are still very significant. This information is usually passed on when an entrepreneur meets in person with contacts from his very fluid informal networks of knowledge. Trust, and the need for direct, personal interaction through face-to-face contact – one of the most pervasive features of African MSE economies – emerge as a common theme across the case study industries and are likely to remain a crucial aspect of the way most MSE business is conducted. Mobile phones are seen to play a crucial role in improving the exchange of supply-anddemand information domestically, while a combination of applications (particularly e-mail) appear to act as tools with which to refresh relationships with sources of market information outside the country. It is suggested that ICT may be able to help entrepreneurs in moving from the personal to the impersonal exchange – a challenge that many other African businesses will also have to come to terms with as the Internet becomes an ever more important global trading tool.

Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) retail businesses in many countries, including Thailand, are facing challenges of high competition, as modern retail formats have grown rapidly in many Asian countries such as Singapore, Taiwan, China and Thailand (Howard, 2009). Thus, SME retail Businesses are facing an "innovate or die" situation, as non-adapting retail firms have always been and will continue to be driven out of the business (Evans, 2011). A new critical capability of retail business is the ability to configure and reconfigure its processes into a coherent blueprint - known in other words as a Business Model (Sorescu et al., 2011). The research question becomes "How can SME retail Business in Thailand successfully compete through Business Model Innovation?" Business Model Innovation requires system wide changes, since modifying one component always has network effects on other components (Tikkanen et al., 2005). There is no fixed method or successful formula that all companies will adopt; therefore disciplined experimentation and adaptation is recommended (Berman, 2011; Chesbrough, 2010; McGrath, 2010; Mitchell et al., 2003; Teece, 2010). However, most past studies on innovation are about large companies (Tim, 2004) and not many articles cover empirical studies on Business Model Innovation. In particular, few studies address the dynamic view (Demil and Lecocq, 2010; Svejenova et al., 2010; Sosna et al., 2010).This research focuses on the implementation of Business Model Innovation within SME retail business. The research uses a methodology called Action Research, and was conducted within the researcher's organization, which is a SME retail business in Thailand. This overcomes the practical challenges of studying SME business, which is related to limited opportunity to conduct empirical research. The study was conducted over the 4 year period from October 2010 to August 2014 by implementing Business Model Innovation in order to exploit opportunities in rural areas. Business Model concepts were employed as sources of innovation and units of analysis. Action Research consists of multiple cycles of changes and adaptation. It was found that Business Model concepts can be represented at different levels of abstraction from reality. At a high level of abstraction, the Business Model Canvas helps to understand the overview of the firm's business logic in a broad way, and provide ideas about what can be adapted. At the operational level, the Retailing Business Model provides a structural approach to the conceptualisation, planning and implementation of activities that support high level changes. In all, Business Model Innovation can be conceptualised as an ongoing learning process similar to the iterative cycles of Action research. These cycles consist of constructing actions, planning, taking actions and evaluating actions. The Business Model concepts at different levels of abstraction can be used for understanding and planning, as well as to capture learning experiences, both on the high level and on the operational level. Therefore, Business Model Innovation is a dynamic process where changes and learning happen continuously. Such a process enables SME retail businesses to improve their understanding of their Business Model and thus improve their chances of success?

Innovative high-technology SMEs have become a major influencing factor in the success of any modern economy and they increasingly compete in the globalised world with limited resources. Previous research on SMEs at firm level has always taken into consideration the constraints of the resources that an SME faces and the implications of this on their performance and business growth. SMEs have to develop their own unique skills and capabilities, allocating their limited resources appropriately to be able to respond to the changes in the external business environment that pose risks to the success of their innovation and its commercialisation. Having an innovation strategy is very important: to have a clear goal and a path to achieve the set goal. This helps high-technology SMEs to decide which factors can influence the success of their innovations, leading to business growth by developing dynamic capabilities to respond to the external changes by allocating their resources at their disposal. This thesis is an empirical analysis of innovation strategy and its role in the business growth of high-technology SMEs. This research study is carried out at firm level. It draws on Resource-Based View and Dynamic Capability theory to explore innovation strategy factors contributing to the better performance of the firm. Four hypotheses were proposed based on the theoretical framework developed through the literature review. They were tested using empirical data. The primary data were collected using quantitative methods through survey questionnaire. Data was collected from 106 high-technology SMEs in the UK. Technological factor, marketing factor, entrepreneurial factor and risk from the business environment were identified as four important factors which are part of an innovation strategy. The results of the study suggest three revised factors: technology, entrepreneurial and government-related risk factors. The initial risk related to business environment was amended to government-related risk factors based on the measurement variables which were loaded to the factor. However, one hypothesis based on the marketing factor failed to support the proposed positive influence on business growth and hence rejected. This calls for further research on the marketing factor in high-technology SMEs. This study recognises the reason behind this paradoxical result, which could be the nature of the high-technology firms participating in this study, which are more dependent on technology-push rather than marketing pull and they do not confirm with the established norms of marketing for the business growth of their firm. This study contributes to the development of knowledge and practice at multiple levels. The research developed a theoretical framework to establish the innovation strategy factors and its influence on business growth and this is validated through empirical data. At the practice level, the results of the study could be used by high-technology SMEs in the UK, and any other high-technology SMEs which are based in a similar economy and business environment, to have better information about innovation strategy. The study could also help policy makers, propose better policy to support innovation of high-technology SMEs in UK.

The UK Fashion Industry (FI) is both volatile and fast-changing. Notably, the clothing and jewellery industry contributes £16 billion annually to the UK’s revenues. However, small and medium-sized (SMEs) fashion companies are stressed to survive the harsh global competition. The companies have to manage their routine projects, thinking constantly about keeping their market position and how to develop further in their industry. Thus, the FI requires an in-depth understanding of the success factors to survive in this competitive marketplace. A detailed literature review has been conducted to discover the background of the FI and also to understand the basic requirements of daily operations and strategies used for development and growth. As there is not much empirical study available in the area of FI, a qualitative exploratory study has been chosen as the research methodology for this particular research. A multiple case studies approach was chosen to cover eight case studies located in Leicester, Luton and London. The study is interpretative and social constructionism is its philosophical approach; and hence, the context of the study has to be interpreted in its own ethnographical setting, why and how participants construct the meaning of project management (PM). This data triangulation provided the study qualitative credibility of the findings. The data analysis found four main themes, comprising fifteen sub-themes. ‘PM capabilities’ is the most important theme for completing the daily routine operations; these are also highly utilised in the UK FI SMEs. ‘Sensing new opportunities’ is the second important theme for advancing further; these are utilised by SMEs to remain up-to-date with the market environment. ‘Manufacturing capabilities’ is the third theme found helping SMEs with their routine manufacturing base in the UK: how they extended their trade through manufacturing. ‘Jewellery industry (JI) capabilities’ is the fourth theme helping the JI to outsource and deal with trust and relations in their trade. The study contributes to the UK FI SMEs by suggesting Dynamic Project Management (DPM) approaches specific to each industry, namely, the clothing, jewellery and designer industries. Research findings also suggest that new dynamic strategies need to be sensed, adopted and learned for the development and survival of these SMEs. The benchmarking tool, provided through status categories, will guide any company in the FI to compare its progress and take steps for further development. PM tools and techniques suggested for use by these FI SMEs will also help them with further improvement in project operations.