A small business research paper discusses the impact of covid-19 on small businesses. Pertinent topics to be discussed are the limitations of small businesses, types of small businesses, basic themes associated with small businesses, challenges faced by small businesses and how they overcome them, their strategies for survival amid the high competitiveness, key reasons for their survival amongst many others.
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This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the factors that influence small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance and particularly, growth. Design/methodology/approach ‐ This paper utilises an original data set of 360 SMEs employing 5-249 people to run logit regression models of employment growth, turnover growth and profitability. The models include characteristics of the businesses, the owner-managers and their strategies. Findings ‐ The results suggest that size and age of enterprise dominate performance and are more important than strategy and the entrepreneurial characteristics of the owner. Having a business plan was also found to be important. Research limitations/implications ‐ The results contribute to the development of theoretical and knowledge bases, as well as offering results that will be of interest to research and policy communities. The results are limited to a single survey, using cross-sectional data. Practical implications ‐ The findings have a bearing on business growth strategy for policy makers. The results suggest that policy measures that promote the take-up of business plans and are targeted at younger, larger-sized businesses may have the greatest impact in terms of helping to facilitate business growth. Originality/value ‐ A novel feature of the models is the incorporation of entrepreneurial traits and whether there were any collaborative joint venture arrangements.
Sheds light on the process leading to new enterprise formation and identifies the impact of some selected demographic variables on business start‐ups. In contrast to traditional research methodologies, this study used a new and more comprehensive approach to survey entrepreneurial intention. It studied both those who actually set up a new business and those “nascent entrepreneurs” who abandoned their idea prior to trading. The findings of an empirical analysis of 93 such entrepreneurs are presented. Using multivariate techniques to analyse the data, the importance of three demographic variables ‐ gender, previous government employment and recent redundancy ‐ was identified as having potential negative influences on small business formation, and comparisons are made with past studies.
Most economists agree in their view of small and medium-sized enterprises, or small businesses (SMEs), as a marginal scientific subject. They may go so far as to ignore them, either because they think these economic units do not lend themselves to conventional economic studies — studies which, for instance, take into account the “sacred cow” theory of economies of scale — or because they see them as being not really different from big businesses.
However, at least a few economists have recognized, first, the many characteristics differentiating SMEs from big firms, and second, their increasing importance in terms of numbers and job creation within economies. Among these few, Schumpeter was one of the first to show the importance of entrepreneurs and SMEs as the main variable of change in an economy. Simon and Lucas also explained the difference between small and big firms through the differing abilities required by managers to run them. Penrose looked at the question from another point of view by highlighting the interstices taken up by SMEs to fulfil needs that cannot be fulfilled by bigger units. Critics of the theory of economies of scale showed that such economies may be offset by a number of diseconomies, thus justifying the efficiency of many SMEs. More recently, Mills and Schumann suggested that SMEs compensate for their lack of economies of scale by their production flexibility, particularly in today’s turbulent economy.
The limits of traditional economic theory are clearly demonstrated by the fact that it does not take account of all these theories, concepts and ideas. It thus neglects a number of important economic phenomena, including the persistence and current expansion of SMEs. Consideration of such phenomena may lead to the development of a new economic theory based on the concepts of instability and contingency, together with the behaviour of entrepreneurs and small firms, thus tending to contradict, in particular, the concept of equilibrium in conventional economic theory.
Small business and crisis management research are two established but largely uncoupled domains of study. Given the economic importance and vulnerability of a small businesses, closer attention is needed to understand how their owners think and act in relation to crisis management efforts in the event of business interruptions.This study highlights the relative absence of crisis management research in the small business literature and the absence of a small business focus in the crisis management literature, despite a rising tide of regulation and legislation that requires companies to have crisis/business continuity management arrangements in place. The study examines the understanding of, and resourcing and support for, crisis management using case studies from four UK small businesses. The resulting analysis illuminates four themes; understanding risks, three-dimensional crisis, learning from crisis, and stifled support systems. Furthermore, data suggest that owner-managers may frame risks in two ways — a ‘growth vulnerability paradox’ and the ‘risk elastic’ — while their understanding of crisis is conceptualized using a chronological approach to identify three key areas: crisis threat, crisis response, and crisis impact. The study concludes by asserting the need for a crisis-based view of small business research and proposes an agenda for future study.
Journal Information
Entrepreneurship is increasingly important as a scholarly field. Small Business Economics provides an invaluable forum for research and scholarship focusing on the role of entrepreneurship and small business. The journal has a broad scope and focuses on multiple dimensions of entrepreneurship, including entrepreneurs’ characteristics, new ventures and innovation, firms’ life cycles; as well as the role played by institutions and public policies within local, regional, national and international contexts. Small Business Economics publishes theoretical, empirical, and conceptual papers and encourages interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research from a broad spectrum of disciplines and related fields, including economics, finance, management, psychology, regional studies, sociology and strategy.
Social‐distancing restrictions and health‐ and economic‐driven demand shifts from COVID‐19 are expected to shutter many small businesses and entrepreneurial ventures, but there is very little early evidence on impacts. This paper provides the first analysis of impacts of the pandemic on the number of active small businesses in the United States using nationally representative data from the April 2020 Current Population Survey—the first month fully capturing early effects. The number of active business owners in the United States plummeted by 3.3 million or 22% over the crucial 2‐month window from February to April 2020. The drop in active business owners was the largest on record, and losses to business activity were felt across nearly all industries. African‐American businesses were hit especially hard experiencing a 41% drop in business activity. Latinx business owner activity fell by 32%, and Asian business owner activity dropped by 26%. Simulations indicate that industry compositions partly placed these groups at a higher risk of business activity losses. Immigrant business owners experienced substantial losses in business activity of 36%. Female business owners were also disproportionately affected (25% drop in business activity). Continuing the analysis in May and June, the number of active business owners remained low—down by 15% and 8%, respectively. The continued losses in May and June, and partial rebounds from April were felt across all demographic groups and most industries. These findings of early‐stage losses to small business activity have important implications for policy, income losses, and future economic inequality.
Conclusion:
The information you present in your small business research paper should be the focus of much of your planning. You can use much of the information found in this article to write your paper. As the importance of Customer Centricity continues to grow in importance, so does the relevancy of these businesses. Do you have what it takes to be successful in business today?