No description available.

The importance of small firms in a country’s development cannot be over-emphasized. In particular, it is important for them to grow in order to sustain their contributions to a country’s economy. Studies have shown how firms achieve growth using the traditional model of decision making (causation) in which planning, market research and forecasting are used to gain relevant information about the firm’s market/industry. This planning enables the firms to compete favourably with other existing firms in the market. Effectuation as an alternative theory involves decision-making processes under conditions of uncertainty where there is no adequate knowledge of the market due to its latent and emerging nature. Effectuation has been used to examine various concepts in entrepreneurship, but there has been no real effort to apply it to the growth of small knowledge-intensive firms (SKIFs). This study, based on in-depth interviews with six SKIFs, highlights how effectuation can be applied to the growth of SKIFs and it examines how the four underlying principles of contingencies, affordable loss, strategic relationships and adaptation contribute to SKIF growth. In addition, elements of causation are also shown to be relevant, leading to the conclusion that the two models can be used jointly to achieve growth of SKIFs.

The importance of small firms in a country’s development cannot be over-emphasized. In particular, it is important for them to grow in order to sustain their contributions to a country’s economy. Studies have shown how firms achieve growth using the traditional model of decision making (causation) in which planning, market research and forecasting are used to gain relevant information about the firm’s market/industry. This planning enables the firms to compete favourably with other existing firms in the market. Effectuation as an alternative theory involves decision-making processes under conditions of uncertainty where there is no adequate knowledge of the market due to its latent and emerging nature. Effectuation has been used to examine various concepts in entrepreneurship, but there has been no real effort to apply it to the growth of small knowledge-intensive firms (SKIFs). This study, based on in-depth interviews with six SKIFs, highlights how effectuation can be applied to the growth of SKIFs and it examines how the four underlying principles of contingencies, affordable loss, strategic relationships and adaptation contribute to SKIF growth. In addition, elements of causation are also shown to be relevant, leading to the conclusion that the two models can be used jointly to achieve growth of SKIFs.

<p>Småföretagen har en betydande roll för ett lands ekonomi och Venture Capital fonderna spelar en viktig roll vid finansieringen av dessa företag då de har svårt att erhålla finansiering på vanligt vis. För att VC-fonderna i sin tur skall kunna bedriva sin verksamhet krävs det att de i sin tur erhåller finansiering från en investerare, som därför kommer att spela en viktig roll i denna process. Studien är baserad på en hermeneutisk kunskapssyn och vi valde att genom en kvalitativ metod utföra fem stycken intervjuer med investerare inom pensionsfonder och försäkringsbolag, som visat sig vara de största investerarna i VC-fonder. Vi ville få en förståelse och kartlägga processen i och med att en investerare väljer att investera i en VC-fond och även visa på de olika problemen som investeraren möter på vägen.</p><p>Detta har vi genomfört genom huvudsakligen en deduktiv ansats, då vi i vår teori tagit upp mycket av de problem som kan uppstå vid en investering, för att sedan genom intervjuer undersöka om dessa problem även uppstår för investerare till VC-fonder. Vi menar att vi även bidrar med ny forskning inom området och i och med detta anser vi att vi har inslag av ett induktivt angreppssätt.</p><p><em>Första steget</em> består i att investeraren bedriver en ”screening process” vilket innebär att investeraren gör en aktiv utvärdering av VC-fonderna och dess bakomliggande team. Denna process är den klart mest tidskrävande och generellt ser vi att den i flera fall kan uppgå till att man följer en VC-fond i flera år innan man bestämmer sig för att investera i den. <em>Andra steget</em> är kontraktsförhandling och beslut där man biträdda av externa jurister förhandlar man fram ett kontrakt. Detta kontrakt innehåller en rad stadgar och klausuler för att skydda investerarna från att VC-fonden agerar mot investerarnas intresse. Slutgiltigt beslut att investera i en VC-fond tas generellt av en investeringskommitté hos investeraren. <em>Tredje steget </em>består i uppföljning och kontroll av de pengar man investerat. Investerarna erhåller kvartalsrapporter som VC-fonden producerar och träffar teamet till VC-fonden några gånger per år för att gå igenom verksamheten. Vi ser också att investerarna försöker hålla en dialog med förvaltaren av VC-fonden och fungera som en rådgivare via så kallade ”advisory boards”. <em>Fjärde steget </em>innebär Exit, vilket handlar om när VC-fonden likvideras och investerarna får tillbaka sina investerade pengar och en eventuell vinstdelning sker mellan förvaltare och investerare.</p><p>Studien visar på att agentproblem genomsyrar större delen av investeringsprocessen mellan investerare och VC-fond. För att minska risken för adverse selection genomför man en grundlig utvärderingsprocess i inledningsskedet av investeringsprocessen för att sortera bort de dåliga investeringsalternativen. I och med att ansvaret för investerarnas pengar övergår till VC-fonden ökar detta risken för moral hazard. Vår studie visar på att investerarna förhandlar in en rad klausuler i kontrakten samt följer upp och kontrollerar investerade pengar, genom dels den löpande dialogen med VC-fonden men även personliga möten. Detta för att skydda sig mot denna typ av problem.</p>

Småföretagen har en betydande roll för ett lands ekonomi och Venture Capital fonderna spelar en viktig roll vid finansieringen av dessa företag då de har svårt att erhålla finansiering på vanligt vis. För att VC-fonderna i sin tur skall kunna bedriva sin verksamhet krävs det att de i sin tur erhåller finansiering från en investerare, som därför kommer att spela en viktig roll i denna process. Studien är baserad på en hermeneutisk kunskapssyn och vi valde att genom en kvalitativ metod utföra fem stycken intervjuer med investerare inom pensionsfonder och försäkringsbolag, som visat sig vara de största investerarna i VC-fonder. Vi ville få en förståelse och kartlägga processen i och med att en investerare väljer att investera i en VC-fond och även visa på de olika problemen som investeraren möter på vägen. Detta har vi genomfört genom huvudsakligen en deduktiv ansats, då vi i vår teori tagit upp mycket av de problem som kan uppstå vid en investering, för att sedan genom intervjuer undersöka om dessa problem även uppstår för investerare till VC-fonder. Vi menar att vi även bidrar med ny forskning inom området och i och med detta anser vi att vi har inslag av ett induktivt angreppssätt. Första steget består i att investeraren bedriver en ”screening process” vilket innebär att investeraren gör en aktiv utvärdering av VC-fonderna och dess bakomliggande team. Denna process är den klart mest tidskrävande och generellt ser vi att den i flera fall kan uppgå till att man följer en VC-fond i flera år innan man bestämmer sig för att investera i den. Andra steget är kontraktsförhandling och beslut där man biträdda av externa jurister förhandlar man fram ett kontrakt. Detta kontrakt innehåller en rad stadgar och klausuler för att skydda investerarna från att VC-fonden agerar mot investerarnas intresse. Slutgiltigt beslut att investera i en VC-fond tas generellt av en investeringskommitté hos investeraren. Tredje steget består i uppföljning och kontroll av de pengar man investerat. Investerarna erhåller kvartalsrapporter som VC-fonden producerar och träffar teamet till VC-fonden några gånger per år för att gå igenom verksamheten. Vi ser också att investerarna försöker hålla en dialog med förvaltaren av VC-fonden och fungera som en rådgivare via så kallade ”advisory boards”. Fjärde steget innebär Exit, vilket handlar om när VC-fonden likvideras och investerarna får tillbaka sina investerade pengar och en eventuell vinstdelning sker mellan förvaltare och investerare. Studien visar på att agentproblem genomsyrar större delen av investeringsprocessen mellan investerare och VC-fond. För att minska risken för adverse selection genomför man en grundlig utvärderingsprocess i inledningsskedet av investeringsprocessen för att sortera bort de dåliga investeringsalternativen. I och med att ansvaret för investerarnas pengar övergår till VC-fonden ökar detta risken för moral hazard. Vår studie visar på att investerarna förhandlar in en rad klausuler i kontrakten samt följer upp och kontrollerar investerade pengar, genom dels den löpande dialogen med VC-fonden men även personliga möten. Detta för att skydda sig mot denna typ av problem.

This study investigates small firm internationalisation from an individual owner-manager’s perspective. Despite advancing our understanding of small firm internationalisation, process-based theories including the Uppsala, innovation-related and networks explanations, and more recently entrepreneurial-based theories remain vague in relation to what characterises and constitutes the internationalisation practices of small owner-managed firms. Process theories overlook the owner-manager and their practices, while entrepreneurial explanations focus on individual characteristics to the exclusion of their internationalisation practices. Furthermore, existing explanations are constrained by rationalistic assumptions prevalent in small firm internationalisation research which de-emphasise comprehensiveness, connectedness and complexity in favour of de-contextualised parsimonious causal relationships, thereby limiting investigations into how owner-managers understand and practice firm internationalisation. As a way forward, an alternative interpretive lens is adopted using a phenomenographic approach to explore how owner-managers understand and practise firm internationalisation. Consequently, the owner-manager’s lived experiences of firm internationalisation provide the point of departure for this study. In-depth interviews with owner-managers of small internationalising wineries, together with observations, field notes, documentation and secondary data formed the basis of my empirical material which was analysed in two-stages. The material was initially analysed in terms of what constituted firm internationalisation practice, and was subsequently examined to explore how owner-managers understand firm internationalisation. A small firm internationalisation activity cycle comprising: assessing and knowing markets, prospecting and attracting agent interest, assessing agent compatibility, supporting and sustaining agent relationships and termination or failure of agent relationships emerged as what constituted their internationalisation practice. Subsequent analysis revealed how owner-managers understood firm internationalisation by identifying four qualitatively different understandings of firm internationalisation practices: seeking market knowledge, competing on price, portraying distinctiveness and storytelling. The internationalisation activity cycle and the understandings of firm internationalisation were later connected to form an understanding-based theory of small firm internationalisation. This study contributes to small firm internationalisation theory in two ways: first, the articulation of an on-going and inter-connected internationalisation activity cycle of the small firm extends existing theories by providing a more complete and accurate explanation of how owner-managers of small firms conduct their internationalisation practices. It makes visible the activities, processes and relationships obscured by existing theories. The internationalisation activity cycle, through the inter-relatedness of each of the activities concurrently, combines market knowledge processes with processes of attracting, building and replacing network relationships with domestic and foreign-based actors. Second, revealing different understandings of internationalisation practices of small owner-managed firms, and associating these understandings of internationalisation with their internationalisation activity cycle not only extends existing theories but offers a new explanation of small firm internationalisation. An understanding-based theory of small firm internationalisation advocates that variations in conduct and activities undertaken by owner-managers are determined by their different understandings of firm internationalisation. As a result, owner-managers attach different meanings to the activities within the internationalisation activity cycle as they conduct their internationalisation practices. Consequently, the variability and idiosyncratic nature of small firm internationalisation is captured as one of multiplicity, rather than demanding universal explanation proposed by existing theories. Keywords: small firm, internationalisation, understanding-based theory, internationalisation activity cycle, phenomenography Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classifications (ANZSRC): 150304 entrepreneurship 10%, 150308 international business 70%, 150314 small business management 20%

The contribution of small firms towards the creation of economic value in a country’s Gross Domestic Product, employment and innovation is widely acknowledged. Relatively little is known on how small firms are adopting IT strategically to acheive business-IT alignment and how alignment changes over time. This study examines from a dynamic perspective IT adoption actions undertaken by owner-managers, in relation to business-IT alignment in small firms in the island state of Malta. To attain its research objectives, the methodological stance adopted in this research study is that of grounded theory. Moving away from a deductive approach, this study embraces a constructivist approach using a combination of inductive and abductive thought. No fewer than thirty-one in-depth interviews are conducted with owner-managers to observe alignment patterns of IT adoption behaviour in their respective small firms operating in Malta and employing up to 49 employees. Four business-IT alignment equilibrium states are identified, serving as markers to map out the common IT alignment paths that each firm pursued, not necessarily in linear form, during their operational years. A substantive model, which identifies four distinct IT alignment patterns, denotes each common path that a group of firms took in their movement from one alignment equilibrium state to another, throughout their life-cycle stages. This study has substantive application and comprises several implications for the development of IT adoption behaviour when small firms endeavour to strategically align business with IT. It provides policy-makers, academic researchers and small firms’ owner-managers with a theoretical framework that can provide them with factors that can predict the kind of alignment patterns that are likely to occur. Findings indicate that the quality of IT related technological solutions that are taken up by each small firm are reliant on the owner-manager’s characteristics that focus mainly on the knowledge of internal IT expertise and the project management capabilities to manage IT outsourcers. Given that few studies have been conducted to study and establish patterns of IT alignment in small firms, this research provides an important contribution to knowledge and to the existing academic literature.

<p><strong>Bakgrund: </strong>Detaljhandeln har under de senare decennierna genomgått en förändring där större kedjor tar allt mer plats. Den levande debatten om vikten av småföretagandet i Sverige gör att frågan väcks om vad som händer med småföretagen i detaljhandelns utveckling. Samverkan kan vara ett sätt för småföretagen att konkurrera mot de större aktörerna. Småföretagaren beskrivs inte sällan ha en önskan om att arbeta självständigt och en stark vilja om hur det egna företaget ska drivas. Då två av tre småföretag ändå väljer att regelbundet samarbeta med andra företag är det av intresse att undersöka vad småföretagen har för motiv till samverkan.</p><p><strong>Syfte: </strong>Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka varför småföretag väljer att ingå organiserad samverkan. Vi vill därtill utreda vilken påverkan ett organiserat samarbete har på företagen.</p><p><strong>Studiens genomförande:</strong> Genom en telefonintervju, e-postintervjuer samt genom en enkätundersökning till medlemmarna i trädgårdshandelskedjan BoGrönt, har en fallstudie genomförts för att undersöka småföretagens motiv till att ingå organiserad samverkan.</p><p><strong>Resultat: </strong>Resultatet av studien visar att detaljhandelns utveckling har påverkat småföretagens motiv att samverka. Småföretagen har, genom att ingå organiserad samverkan, en förhoppning om att dra nytta av de skalfördelar, det erfarenhetsutbyte och den starkare förhandlingsposition som en större organisation kan skapa.</p> / <p><strong>Background:</strong> The Swedish retail market has during the last decades experienced a big change where the business chains are taking larger market shares. The constant debate about the importance of the small firm makes us wonder what is happening with the small firm in this development of the marketplace. Cooperation is one option for the small firm to be able to compete against the big business chains. The small entrepreneur is not seldom described as a person with a wish to work independently and with a strong opinion about how his or hers business should be run. Despite this description two out of three small firms choose to cooperate which makes it interesting to examine the small firm’s incentive to cooperate?</p><p><strong>Aim: </strong>The aim of this study is to examine why the small firm chooses to engage in organized cooperation. We will also find out what effects the cooperation has on the small firm.</p><p><strong>Completion of the study: </strong>With a telephone interview, e-mail interview and through a survey to the members of the gardening chain BoGrönt we have completed a case study to investigate the small firm’s incentives to cooperate.</p><p><strong>Findings:</strong> The findings of this study conducts that the development of the retail market has affected the small firms incentives to cooperate. The small firm has, by engaging in organized cooperation, a wish to make profits from the economies of scale, the exchange of experiences and the stronger bargaining position that a bigger organization creates.</p>

Problem: Is there a statistically significant relationship between the EI of an ownermanager and the EO within a small firm? Purpose: The primary purpose of this study was to perform an exploratory study of the research by addressing the first hypothesis. The secondary purpose of this study was to characterize the nature of this relationship by exploring micro-connections between EI and EO factors, by addressing the second hypothesis. Hypotheses: 1) An owner-manager’s EI can be used to predict EO within small firms. 2) An owner-managers’ EI dimensions are positively correlated to the EO dimensions in small firms.   Method: A questionnaire including the EISDI (Emotional Intelligence) instrument and the Covin &amp; Slevin (1989) Entrepreneurial Orientation (entrepreneurial/strategic posture) instrument were sent by email to respondents. Responses were collected from a sample of 35 respondents, who were identified as owner-managers of small, young firms within the Swedish high-tech industry. An empirical analysis examined correlations between global EI and global EO, as well as EI and EO factors.     Main findings: Both hypotheses were rejected. It was concluded that an owner-manager’s EI cannot be used to predict EO within small firms. Moreover, it was found that no part of an owner-manager’s EI is significantly nor strongly correlated to EO dimensions within small firms.

Firms must access capital to remain in business.  Small firms have greater difficulty accessing financial resources than have large firms because of their limited access to capital markets.  These difficulties are exacerbated by information asymmetries between a small firm’ s management and capital providers.  It has been theorized that many information asymmetries can be reduced through networks that link those in need of capital with those who can supply it. This research is about these relationships and their impact on the firms’ capital structure. This research has been limited to a sub-set of small firms, family firms.  I have collected data through a survey using a systematic sampling procedure. Both self-administered questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were utilized. The data analysis was based on the responses from two-hundred-and-fifty-six small manufacturing firms in Thailand. Seemingly unrelated regression (SUR), logistic regression, multiple discriminant analysis and Mann-Whitney U test were employed in the analysis. The hypothesis that firms apply a pecking order in their capital raising was confirmed although the generally accepted rationale based on poor access (and information asymmetries) was rejected.  Instead, at least for family firms, the desire to maintain family control had a significant impact on the use of retained earnings and owner’s savings. My results also indicated that while the depth of relationships had a positive effect on direct funding from family and friends, networks did not facilitate capital access from external providers of funds. Instead direct communications between owner-managers and their capital providers (particularly bank officials) mattered. A comparative analysisof small manufacturing firms in general and small family manufacturing firms revealed that there were differences between them in regard to their financial preferences, suggesting that family firms should be considered separately in small firm research. Further, the results of this research raise some questions about the appropriateness of applying theories directly from one research context to another without due consideration for  the impact of cultural influences. Through this research I have added evidence to the dialogue about small firms from a non-English speaking country by investigating the impact of networks on capital structure and the rationale behind family firm capital structure decisions.