IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/jecxxx/v20y2012i03ns0218495812500136.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding Small Business Strategy: A Grounded Theory Study On Small Firms In The E.U. State Of Malta

Author

Listed:
  • ALEXANDER RIZZO

    (Centre for Entrepreneurship, Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University, Scotland)

  • HEATHER FULFORD

    (Centre for Entrepreneurship, Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University, Scotland)

Abstract

The common argument for the small business is that there simply is no strategy; that small businesses react heuristically to events, guided by the whims and passions of the owner-manager. Strategy, however, can be looked at from a behavioural perspective, as opposed to the more normative strategic planning schools that small firms rarely abide by. This concept of strategy as 'behaviour' encompasses the actions of the owner-manager, the context of the small firm, and the consequences of the actions taken. It looks at strategy as part deliberate and part emergent, allowing for the inclusion of both external influences and internal decision making. Grounded theory research on small firms in Malta has in fact shown strategy to be a dynamic phenomenon, one that can be viewed as a set of defined pathways between identifiable life cycle states. The paper shall outline the research findings that have identified five distinct patterns of small firm strategic behaviour, each with its own unique trajectory and performance implications. Understanding which strategic pathway a small firm belongs to allows for a comprehensive insight into the firm's competitive behaviour, and a prediction of the consequences of that behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander Rizzo & Heather Fulford, 2012. "Understanding Small Business Strategy: A Grounded Theory Study On Small Firms In The E.U. State Of Malta," Journal of Enterprising Culture (JEC), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 20(03), pages 287-332.
  • Handle: RePEc:wsi:jecxxx:v:20:y:2012:i:03:n:s0218495812500136
    DOI: 10.1142/S0218495812500136
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0218495812500136
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S0218495812500136?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ugt, 1996. "El reparto del trabajo," EKONOMIAZ. Revista vasca de Economía, Gobierno Vasco / Eusko Jaurlaritza / Basque Government, vol. 34(01), pages 215-220.
    2. Ghei, P., 1990. "Analysis of the support of first-referral hospitals to primary health care services, including the activities of hospitals in disease prevention and health promotion. WHO-Report : By K. Lee and G. Hoa," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 267-268, December.
    3. R. J. M. Vaessens & E. H. L. Aarts & J. K. Lenstra, 1996. "Job Shop Scheduling by Local Search," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 8(3), pages 302-317, August.
    4. anonymous, 1996. "New members appointed January 2, 1996," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), issue Mar, pages 217-217.
    5. N/A, 1996. "Beijing 1995," Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Centre for Women's Development Studies, vol. 3(1), pages 79-79, March.
    6. anonymous, 1996. "Profile of James Tobin," The Region, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 10(Dec), pages 28-37.
    7. anonymous, 1996. "New members appointed January 19, 1996," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), issue Mar, pages 217-220.
    8. Unknown, 1996. "Arer Reviewers, June 1995-May 1996," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 25(2), pages 1-1, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Adrianela Angeles & Adriana Perez-Encinas & Cristian E. Villanueva, 2022. "Characterizing Organizational Lifecycle through Strategic and Structural Flexibility: Insights from MSMEs in Mexico," Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, Springer;Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management, vol. 23(2), pages 271-290, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guanxiao Qi & Hongbin Huang & Haijun Wang, 2007. "Size Instabilities In The Ring And Linear Arrays Of Chaotic Systems," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 10(03), pages 301-313.
    2. Shiu-Sheng Chen & Tsong-Min Wu, 2010. "Taiwan'S Exchange Rate And Macroeconomic Policies Over The Business Cycle," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 55(03), pages 435-457.
    3. Renaud Redien-Collot, 2009. "Female Entrepreneurs' Authority: Is The Creative Aspect Of Authority A Masculine Fiction In Managerial And Entrepreneurial Paradigms?," Journal of Enterprising Culture (JEC), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 17(04), pages 419-441.
    4. Mahdi Jalili, 2012. "Synchronizability Of Complex Networks With Community Structure," International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 23(04), pages 1-11.
    5. Yingjie Xia & Yinzuo Zhou, 2014. "Synchronization induced by disorder of phase directions," International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 25(05), pages 1-8.
    6. Hongbin Zhang & Chunguang Li & Guanrong Chen & Xing Gao, 2005. "Hyperchaos In The Fractional-Order Nonautonomous Chen'S System And Its Synchronization," International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 16(05), pages 815-826.
    7. Kerrie Unsworth & Sukanlaya Sawang & Jennifer Murray & Paul Norman & Tamma Sorbello, 2012. "Understanding Innovation Adoption: Effects Of Orientation, Pressure And Control On Adoption Intentions," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 16(01), pages 1-35.
    8. Groflin, Heinz & Klinkert, Andreas, 2007. "Feasible insertions in job shop scheduling, short cycles and stable sets," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 177(2), pages 763-785, March.
    9. Helena Ramalhinho-Lourenço & Olivier C. Martin & Thomas Stützle, 2000. "Iterated local search," Economics Working Papers 513, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    10. Buscher, Udo & Shen, Liji, 2009. "An integrated tabu search algorithm for the lot streaming problem in job shops," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 199(2), pages 385-399, December.
    11. Rikard Lindgren, 2005. "Adopting Competence Systems in Fast-Growing Knowledge-Intensive Organisations," Journal of Information & Knowledge Management (JIKM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(01), pages 1-13.
    12. Steinhofel, K. & Albrecht, A. & Wong, C. K., 1999. "Two simulated annealing-based heuristics for the job shop scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(3), pages 524-548, November.
    13. Rego, César & Duarte, Renato, 2009. "A filter-and-fan approach to the job shop scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 194(3), pages 650-662, May.
    14. Bürgy, Reinhard & Bülbül, Kerem, 2018. "The job shop scheduling problem with convex costs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 268(1), pages 82-100.
    15. Sajjad M. Jasimuddin & N. A. D. Connell & Jonathan H. Klein, 2006. "What Motivates Organisational Knowledge Transfer? Some Lessons from a UK-Based Multinational," Journal of Information & Knowledge Management (JIKM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(02), pages 165-171.
    16. Wassim Aloulou & Alain Fayolle, 2005. "A Conceptual Approach Of Entrepreneurial Orientation Within Small Business Context," Journal of Enterprising Culture (JEC), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 13(01), pages 21-45.
    17. Jain, A. S. & Meeran, S., 1999. "Deterministic job-shop scheduling: Past, present and future," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 390-434, March.
    18. Paul M E Shutler, 2004. "A priority list based heuristic for the job shop problem: part 2 tabu search," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 55(7), pages 780-784, July.
    19. Brailsford, Sally C. & Potts, Chris N. & Smith, Barbara M., 1999. "Constraint satisfaction problems: Algorithms and applications," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 119(3), pages 557-581, December.
    20. Giuseppe Lancia & Franca Rinaldi & Paolo Serafini, 2011. "A time-indexed LP-based approach for min-sum job-shop problems," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 186(1), pages 175-198, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wsi:jecxxx:v:20:y:2012:i:03:n:s0218495812500136. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscinet.com/jec/jec.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.