Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) contribute to the stability and growth of economies by creating employment in rural and urban areas. More than 60% of SMEs do not survive for longer than 5 years; a lack of leadership skills is among the key problems. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the leadership skills owners-managers used to sustain their businesses for longer than 5 years. Research participants were 4 owners-managers of SMEs from the manufacturing industry in Trinidad and Tobago that sustained their businesses for at least 5 years. The contingency leadership model and the skill-based leadership model formed the conceptual lens for this study. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and direct observations. Data were analyzed using Miles and Huberman's analytical strategies and Morse's cognitive process of coding, pattern matching, interpreting, and summarizing the data. Five themes emerged from the data analysis: leadership skills, leadership values, development of leadership skills, leadership challenges, and improvement in leadership skills. The findings from this study could influence positive social change by providing insights on leadership skills SME leaders could use to sustain their operations for the longer term, resulting in reduced failure of SMEs. A decrease in the failure rate of SMEs might contribute to improved economic conditions, leading to the reduction of poverty in families and communities.

Leadership in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has remained an under-researched area in the management literature, especially in developing countries such as Nigeria. SME owner-managers in Nigeria lacked in-depth understanding of their leadership style to objectively evaluate its implication on long-term performance and growth of their enterprise. The purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to explore the experiences of SME owner-managers in Nigeria to gain an in-depth understanding of their leadership style and its implication for long-term performance and growth of their enterprise. The conceptual framework for this study was anchored in two key concepts; leadership styles and leadership in SMEs, with the full range leadership model as the theoretical foundation. The research question sought to explore the role of SMEs owners and managers leadership styles in the long-term success of their enterprise. Interview data were collected from 6 SME owner-managers who employ less than 200 employees within the manufacturing, education, and trading sectors. The cross-case synthesis technique was used for data analysis which allowed for within-case analysis and cross-case comparisons. Findings from this study showed that Nigerian SME owner-managers do not follow any specific leadership style. They exhibited few characteristics of transformational and transactional leadership behaviors, leaning more to transactional leadership. This study has significance for positive social change by providing insights on how leadership styles can improve the performance and sustainability of Nigerian SMEs, thus increasing their capacity to create employment.

Some U.S. small and medium enterprises (SMEs) participate in trade missions but return with no results. Accordingly, some researchers question the effectiveness of these export promotion programs. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore the experiences of SME representatives who had attended a trade mission to South Africa. The research question explored the strategies that SME leaders required to successfully export their goods and services after a trade mission using the conceptual framework of resource-based theory. Snowball sampling was used to recruit and gather interview data from 22 SMEs. Thematic analysis of interview data and document sources, inductively and deductively coded, identified themes of strategic planning processes, country briefings, reasons for being in the country, resources, barriers, positive outcomes, and export commitments. Associated with these themes, 5 stages of the trade mission process and a model of the dynamic relationships in a trade mission emerged, which include recommendations of how to effect change in the process. The results from this study are expected to inform new interventions for export promotion programs for SME exporters. This study promotes social change by preparing SMEs to export, thus building more sustainable U.S. businesses. Applying these findings can support the development of SMEs to export and become long-term exporters benefiting the businesses, employees, and their communities through improved wages and increased tax revenues.

Small business owners in Nigeria submit financial reports to regulators and stakeholders, and they often lack strategies to ensure timeliness in the Nigeria report rendition. Lack of accounting competence and audit lag in the preparation, rendition, and submission of financial statements and reports are some of the contributors to this lack of timeliness. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that owners of small businesses used to ensure timeliness of financial reporting. The population for this study was 5 owners of small businesses in Nigeria. Management by objectives and Hoshin Kanri were the conceptual framework for this study. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and a review of company documents. The thematic analysis led to the emergence of the following themes: (a) hiring the right employees, (b) regular training of accountants, (c) working with external accountants, (d) effective leadership and organizational structure, (e) attending accounting courses or workshops, and (f) using or abiding by formal financial reporting standards. Local small business owners may apply these results to hiring professional accountants to prepare timely financial reports to meet stakeholders' needs. Timely preparation of financial reports by owners of small businesses may contribute to positive social change by providing appropriate feedback to regulators, tax administrators, and small business owners, and encouraging and supporting local economic growth.

This original research seeks to identify unique predictive relationships between the characteristics, values and expectations of entrepreneurs in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and the management practices they choose; and then, the relationships between those practices and business performance. It adds to the current understanding of the impact of entrepreneurs on the performance of their businesses and has also led to the development of two new tools for assessing the performance of SMEs. Growth of the SME sector is important to the public policy agendas of governments, like those in Australia, that are seeking to optimise the employment opportunities associated with an SME sector in which "success" is the norm because SME failure, or underperformance, is associated with many social costs; costs that include reduced earnings for proprietors, potential job loss for staff and financial hardship for suppliers, as well as a reduction in the average per capita spending power of the community in which the failed or under performing business is based. For the SME, business strategy development and implementation is often the role of the entrepreneur owner-manager. The characteristics, values and expectations of entrepreneurs in SMEs may thus influence their choice of management practices and thereby the performance of their businesses. As Cooper (1998) argued: "the primary motivations of the entrepreneur bear upon not only the decision to start but also upon the decisions about how to manage, including whether or not to grow the firm aggressively" (p. 247). Johnson (1990) suggested that there is a strong need to focus future research on the motivation mechanisms of entrepreneurs as drivers of the entrepreneurial process. Johnson's view supports the entrepreneurial trait school of thought that development of an understanding of the individual entrepreneur's characteristics, values and expectations might provide worthwhile insight into her or his behaviour and its relationship to SME success and failure. The purposes of this research, therefore, were, first, to determine the importance of the attributed and attained characteristics of the entrepreneur on the formation of his or her values and expectations; second, to determine the influence of those values and expectations on the choice of management practices; third, to determine the degree to which those management practices influence business performance; and last, to develop a scale of measurement for entrepreneur characteristics, values and expectations that can be used to predict business performance. To enable limited comparison with Kotey's and Meredith's (1997) findings and to control for between industry and between state influences, the chosen context for the research was the furniture industry in Queensland. To add to current knowledge in SME management practices and performance, two new measurement tools were developed for this research. The first quantifies the positiveness of the business intentions of the entrepreneur. The second is a scaled index of perceived performance that takes account of the importance given by an entrepreneur to eight common business objectives and the degree to which he or she is satisfied with the performance of the business for each objective. Both tools are important additions to the limited existing armoury of tools available to researchers seeking to understand and predict SME performance. For the first time, the findings of this research indicate negative relationships between parent occupation skill levels and the importance given by entrepreneurs to the values of responsibility, honesty and competence and the negative role of the entrepreneur's achieved highest qualification on the importance given to values of affection, compassion, religion and national security. The findings thereby highlight the important role played by an entrepreneur's attained characteristics on the formation of his or her values. As well, the results show the important role played by values such as power and responsibility, as well as by high internal locus of control, on an entrepreneur's selection of planning, marketing and future management practices. In turn, the impact of those practices on business performance, as measured by the overall satisfaction of the entrepreneur and the newly created Scaled Index of Perceived Performance, is demonstrated. In so doing, the results shed more light on the complex relationships between entrepreneurs, the management practices they choose, and business performance. For the furniture industry in Queensland, the findings confirm Cooper's (1998) view that there is an empirical relationship between business founding processes and the performance of the business. Also supported is Kotey's and Meredith's (1997) broad finding for the furniture industry in New South Wales that "personal values of owner/managers, the strategies they adopt in operating their firms, and the performance outcomes of their businesses are empirically related" (1997, p. 59). Future research is needed to develop a causal model for those relationships in a variety of SME and other contexts.

Innovation policy (science & technology policy/program) aims to stimulate industrial innovation and address the gap between ideas and the market for new products/process. Hence, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are an important target group for innovation policy. While SMEs play important economic role in Taiwan, it is more meaningful to evaluate related innovation policies, to understand the impact of polices as well as test theoretical models of interactions between the public and private sectors. This topic is significant but little studied or investigated with the chance of bias. From the perspective of program evaluation, the thesis evaluated the effect of government subsidies on SMEs¡¦ innovation including impact assessment and efficiency assessment and took the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program as an example. The target population for evaluation covered three groups: SBIR awardees, firms with rejected applications, general SME manufacturers. Questionnaires were delivered to 942 firms with SBIR Phase I or Phase II awards and 222 firms with rejected applications between 1999 and 2004; 374 and 36 valid questionnaires were returned separately. The Department of Statistics of the Ministry of Economic Affairs provided the data of general SMEs. This thesis evaluated the impact of SBIR by a quasi-experimental design and examines the efficiency by an econometric model. Main findings are as follows: A. The impact of government R&D subsidies on SMEs: 1. Innovative activity (R&D spending): Compared to other SMEs (firms with rejected applications or general SME manufacturers), the growth of SBIR awardees¡¦ R&D spending is significant. 2. Productivity (employment or sales): Compared to other SMEs (firms with rejected applications or general SME manufacturers), the growth of SBIR awardees¡¦ employment is significant. Compared to general SME manufacturers, the growth of SBIR awardees¡¦ sales is significant; but compared to firms with rejected applications, the growth of SBIR awardees¡¦ sales is not significant. B. The efficiency of government R&D subsidies on SMEs: 1. Innovative activity (R&D spending): On average, 0.28 percentage change in SBIR awardees¡¦ R&D spending is correlated with 1 percent change in subsidies (elasticity relationship). 2. Productivity (employment or sales): On average, 0.08 percentage change in SBIR awardees¡¦ employment and 0.25 percentage change in SBIR awardees sales is separately correlated with 1 percent change in subsidies (elasticity relationship).

Abstract The economic growth of Taiwan was guided by small and medium enterprises; Especially Taiwan fastener industry acts an important role for Taiwan small and medium enterprises. As an old saying goes ¡§the young soldier sets up the great merit. ¡§ This is best way to describe Taiwan fastener industry. Taiwan fastener industry is playing an important part of National Development, but even government rulers ignore this. Unless you are part of Taiwan fastener industry, you can not understand that this industry is such respectable. It has been more 60 years since Taiwan launched into its name of fastener supply center. Mostly Taiwan fastener industry is small and medium enterprises. However these enterprises could not get much help from government or each other. They all fight alone. Many companies cannot survive when they meet difficulties and bottlenecks. Even companies want to help each other, integration are a big problem to them. This research is tried to discuss how Taiwan fastener industry to face China¡¦s Lower price competitive stratagem does. Author will all around discuss, analyzes and compare this topic¡§The strategic alliance will be applied between some companies of the fastener industry¡¨ to give to Taiwan fastener industry an all around competitive stratagem. Postgraduate student are working on this research not only to help running my own company but also as a Reference for Taiwan fastener industry.

Today’s fast-paced global economy has intensified the demand for manufacturing companies to make their products more quickly and with higher quality to meet heightened consumer expectations while reducing costs. This competitive environment requires small to medium enterprise’s (SMEs) to implement well-designed business processes and leverage information technology (IT), such as an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, within their facilities to become more agile, flexible, and integrated to meet changing market demands. Issues emerge when facility managers lack reliable data on performance and costs, which subsequently impairs even basic decisions for resource allocation or process improvement. Although the benefits of a successful ERP implementation in large firms are recognized, there is a general lack of empirical IT productivity literature focusing on SMEs. This research is expected to contribute to a framework for performance measurement, providing facility decision-makers with important metrics for analyzing their firm’s ability to improve upon competitive priorities. Employing the Delphi process, key performance indicators (KPIs) including time, speed, quality, and cost, and corresponding performance measurement metrics, investigations are conducted between traditional manufacturing processes in SMEs and processes enhanced through ERP adoption. In this longitudinal case study, significant improvements are observed in production operations relative to time following ERP implementation including a reduction in the defect rate, total manufacturing cost, and scrap rate along with increases in on-time delivery and flexibility.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the importance of knowledge management and to identify the factors that influence and encourage the implementation of knowledge management in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Existing studies have mainly focused large organizations and no study has been carried out from the perspective of small companies systematically. Qualitative design has been used in this research study to identify knowledge management factors that influence the knowledge management implementation in small organizations. A case study has been used and data was collected through interviews from employees of kunjah online service provider. Properly utilizing these factors make a contribution towards organizational growth.

Assistive technologies (AT) are the products provided to elderly and disabled people to enable them to live more independently. Despite their ability to help maintain independence and prevent injury, the literature discussed within this thesis indicates that assistive technologies are not meeting the needs of the end-user. In response, research has been undertaken with the following objectives: 1. To identify how and why assistive technology products are failing to satisfy the customer. 2. To establish if a design tool can be created that overcomes the issues identified in the inductive research and which enables companies to design customer-satisfying assistive technology products. In progressing these objectives, two phases of research were planned. The first comprised four parallel studies (focus groups, case studies, questionnaires and a literature study), which together examined the state of AT products and the product-development activities of AT manufacturers. The second phase of research examined four customer-focused product design methods for their suitability for utilisation by small companies within the AT sector. On finding that no method in its entirety was suitable, a customer-focused design tool for small AT companies was developed. The resulting tool comprises eight elements for application in the initial stages of the product development process. The tool was tested in four separate studies, which examined its usability and acceptability to AT companies and which gave further insights into the AT sector. The research both finds that AT products are failing the customer in five areas and that manufacturers are contributing to this failure through a lack of customer-focus in their design processes. In addition to identifying the market research and product development activities of small AT companies, a key contribution to knowledge resulting from the research is the concept of sectoral readiness for methods of design. In its conclusion the thesis finds that the two research objectives have been met.