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Keywords
Small enterprises, Critical success factors, United Kingdom
Abstract
Interest in successful small businesses continues to grow, but is influenced by the different ways in which small businesses are categorised and the difficulty of defining "success". There is a range of criteria associated with success in terms of individual owner characteristics, organisational values and performance measures. However, few researchers have consulted owner/ managers about their views on success. This research is instructive in that it used a grounded theory approach to investigate success in small service sector organisations. The impact of education, training, development, prior knowledge and experience on the success of these businesses was investigated. Four substantive categories were developed, but only one category showed clear evidence that education and training had a positive effect on the success of the business. Most businesses relied heavily on prior knowledge and experience. The properties, personal characteristics of the owner-manager and some hypotheses were also developed for each category.
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Introduction
Much research has been carried out on the subject of small business success. Unfortunately significant progress has not been made, largely due to researchers not taking into account the many problems specific to small business research (Curran and Blackburn, 2001; Beaver, 2002) and that these small businesses have different characteristics, objectives and qualities and that these differ between industries (Gadenne, 1998). Diverse perceptions regarding the definition of success have created problems (Beaver, 2002). A further problem is identifying a suitable methodological approach (Watson et al., 1998).
Many factors both internal and external have been found to impact on small business success including, inter alia, industry structure and competition, entrepreneurial decisions, employee relations, entrepreneurial objectives, organisational culture, education, training and prior experience and various sub-categories within these areas. Previous researchers have attempted to define success in terms of growth (Perren, 1999, 2000), sustainability and turnover, while others have looked at entrepreneurial characteristics and traits contributing to success and the organisational characteristics indicative of success. All of these attempts have failed to agree on the success factors (Watson et al, 1998). This research focuses on the issues critical to the entrepreneurs/...