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Intrapreneurs are those employees who identify and pursue opportunities in a firm. By pursuing these opportunities with new products, services or processes, intrapreneurial employees may influence the strategic direction of the firm, a process called intrapreneurial strategy-making. Little consideration has been given to how small firms may use this process to improve performance. To this end this paper describes the results of an empirical study conducted with 454 small firms. Analysis of the data indicates that intrapreneurial strategy-making has a significant positive relationship with firm performance, depending on the size of the firm, its organizational structure and the dynamism of the environment. It further shows that differentiation strategies may mediate this relationship.

Knowledge of how entrepreneurial alertness (EA) and effectuation impact small firms' performance in uncertain markets is limited. Suggesting effectuation as a mediation mechanism between EA and small firms' performance, the authors explore how entrepreneurs of small firms apply effectual logic to translate their individual alertness to market opportunities into firms' performance.

A set of hypotheses is tested by partial least squares analysis of survey data collected from small firms in New Zealand.

The results show that effectuation works as a mechanism that mediates a positive association between founders'/managers' alertness to market opportunities and small firms' performance.

Integrating EA with the effectuation theory, the authors contribute to the literature on new market opportunity development and firm performance. The authors argue that entrepreneurs concentrate on action and resources to further develop their marketing intelligence in developing new market opportunities. The authors also enhance the understanding of entrepreneurial marketing decision-making by small firms in a relatively small economy in the Asia–Pacific region.

The study this chapter reports focuses on how network theory contributes to the understanding of the internationalization process of SMEs and measures the effect of network capability on performance in international trade and has three research objectives.

The first objective of the study relates to providing new insights into the international market development activities through the application of a network perspective. The chapter reviews the international business literature to ascertain the development of thought, the research gaps, and the shortcomings. This review shows that the network perspective is a useful and popular theoretical domain that researchers can use to understand international activities, particularly of small, high technology, resource-constrained firms.

The second research objective is to gain a deeper understanding of network capability. This chapter presents a model for the impact of network capability on international performance by building on the emerging literature on the dynamic capabilities view of the firm. The model conceptualizes network capability in terms of network characteristics, network operation, and network resources. Network characteristics comprise strong and weak ties (operationalized as foreign-market entry modes), relational capability, and the level of trust between partners. Network operation focuses on network initiation, network coordination, and network learning capabilities. Network resources comprise network human-capital resources, synergy-sensitive resources (resource combinations within the network), and information sharing within the network.

The third research objective is to determine the impact of networking capability on the international performance of SMEs. The study analyzes 11 hypotheses through structural equations modeling using LISREL. The hypotheses relate to strong and weak ties, the relative strength of strong ties over weak ties, and each of the eight remaining constructs of networking capability in the study. The research conducts a cross-sectional study by using a sample of SMEs drawn from the telecommunications industry in Ireland.

The study supports the hypothesis that strong ties are more influential on international performance than weak ties. Similarly, network coordination and human-capital resources have a positive and significant association with international performance. Strong ties, weak ties, trust, network initiation, synergy-sensitive resources, relational capability, network learning, and information sharing do not have a significant association with international performance. The results of this study are strong (R2=0.63 for performance as the outcome) and provide a number of interesting insights into the relations between collaboration or networking capability and performance.

This study provides managers and policy makers with an improved understanding of the contingent effects of networks to highlight situations where networks might have limited, zero, or even negative effects on business outcomes. The study cautions against the tendency to interpret networks as universally beneficial to business development and performance outcomes.

Successful firms are important sources of productivity, employment and economic stability in societies. As the micro-level origins of firm innovations are increasingly attracting attention amongst innovation scholars, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of managerial innovativeness, i.e. small firm managers' innovative behaviour for firm performance. Specifically, the present study investigates managerial innovativeness as a predictor of small firms' product innovativeness and market performance.

This research model suggests that managerial innovativeness is positively linked to firms' market performance and that product innovativeness partially mediates the relationship between managerial innovativeness and market performance. The model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with a dataset (N = 93) collected from small logistics firms in South-Eastern Finland.

The findings support the authors' hypotheses and show that managerial innovativeness had a direct effect on firms' product innovativeness and market performance. The authors also found that firms' product innovativeness mediated the relationship between managerial innovativeness and firms' market performance.

This is one of the few studies that shed light on and show that managerial innovativeness is significantly and positively related with small firms' product innovativeness and market performance, whereas earlier research tended to focus on managers' personalities, traits, characteristics or managerial actions, leaving managerial innovativeness unexplored.

Society's concerns about environmental degradation have tightened competitive pressure and brought new challenges to small firms. Against this backdrop, this study develops a decision model to determine a suitable configuration for entrepreneurial orientation to help small firms manage circular economy challenges and improve their performance.

This study used a multi-study and multi-method approach. Study 1, through qualitative in-depth interviews, identified a portfolio of circular economy challenges and entrepreneurial-orientation components. Study 2 applied the quality function deployment technique to determine the most important components of entrepreneurial orientation. Study 3 adopted a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to determine the best configuration for challenges and components.

The findings reveal a set of challenges and identify the salient need to combine the negation of these challenges with the components of entrepreneurial orientation; this combination will improve the performance of small firms. The research extends the current knowledge of managing circular economy challenges and offers decision-makers insights into improving their resilience.

The use of the dynamic capability view, together with the multi-study and multi-method approach, may lead to an appropriate reconfiguration of entrepreneurial orientation, which, to date, has received limited empirical attention in the small-business-management discipline.

The aim of this study is to measure the mediating effect of emotional intelligence on job satisfaction and firm performance of small business and to identify the critical success constructs and significant path of emotional intelligence in relation to job satisfaction and firm performance.

This study provides an analysis of the relevant literature that has been published on the renowned journal of small business. This study’s theoretical framework and constructs were developed based on prior research of emotional intelligence in small business. Along with, data were gathered from 355 respondents, with a valid response rate of 73.95%. This study used the SEM-PLS to measure the validity of the theoretical framework and test the hypothesis.

This study revealed that infrastructure, leadership and management, salary, working hours, working environment and emotional intelligence are very crucial for job satisfaction and firm performance. Emotional intelligence mediated the relationship between five job satisfaction factors (working hours, organizational infrastructure, leadership and management, working environment, salary and other benefits) and firm performance. Thus, this study can contribute to enhancing firm performance and developing a new dimension of small business.

The result of this study will assist the researchers and service providers in understanding the mediating effect of emotional intelligence on job satisfaction and firm performance of small businesses. Thereby, policy formulation in the era of training of employees, leadership and technology-based services orientation will assist to in enhancing opportunities for small businesses and upholding sustainable business.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to analyze the link of the mediating effect of emotional intelligence on job satisfaction and firm performance of small business.

This paper explores the nuanced relationship between individual and firm performance through the lens of market information use, in the specific context of small businesses, shedding light on the specificity of information use and impact of information use on both types of performance.

A mixture of subjective and objective data from a sample of small food producers engaged in an action research project with a major UK supermarket was used to test hypotheses developed from the information management, marketing and small business literature.

The results suggest that the effective use of market information has a significant impact on the performance of both the individual and the organization but independently of each other. The result provides evidence of the potential “disconnection” between individual and organizational levels of performance and the tension that exists in small businesses between operational and strategic decision-making and the use of market information therein.

While the author's study benefits from access to individual decision-makers and objective organizational performance data, the study is not without its limitations. Chief among these is the small sample size. Moreover, while there are clear benefits to working with a homogeneous sample of small food producers supplying the same key customer in the same market, generalizing to small food businesses operating in other distributions channels and small businesses in other sectors is also difficult.

When analyzing the performance of marketing managers, owner-managers should pay attention to the incentives for them to invest time and effort in the effective use of market information as the disconnection between individual and firm performance can have negative implications for their personal development and the overall firm performance.

This study explores a missing link in the extant body of small business literature, i.e., the role played by key individuals with responsibility for the marketing function within small businesses and the relationship between small businesses' approach to the use of market information and performance at a functional level and the overall firm performance.

In order to provide a deeper understanding of small business performance the study aims to analyse data from a national survey into small firms in the events sector.

The analysis used logistic regression to determine a model which best predicts the performance of these firms. The data used were part of a larger scale and previously published survey into the business activities of small events firms in the UK. The resulting model identifies those organisational variables which greatly influence performance as well as identifying the business activities which have little or no effect on performance.

The greater influencing factors were found to be related to the age of the business, the variety of promotional methods used and the sources of finance employed. The more significant factors appeared to be those of a shorter term more operational nature whereas those factors having little effect were those that related more closely to areas of strategic planning.

The findings suggest that small firms in the event sector are likely to perform better if they use a variety of promotional methods, make use of quality tools, and use grants rather than family and friends for funding. The use of marketing planning and research and investment in training is unlikely to improve performance, although this may be only in the short term.

The paper highlights the areas of business operations which can significantly affect performance and is, therefore, of practical use for smaller firms operating in this industry. The analysis also uncovers aspects where further research is required if a more comprehensive understanding of small firm performance determinants is to be gained.

In this study, the authors examine the influence of market orientation on small firms' performance. The authors theorize that the association between market orientation and small firm performance provides an incomplete picture in a competitive environment. The application of configuration approach which involves simultaneous consideration of market orientation, strategic flexibility and competition intensity is crucial to examine driver of firm performance.

The sample of the research study consists of 272 small firms from an emerging economy, India. Ordinary least squares regression has been used to investigate the hypothesized relationships.

The authors noted that the three-way interaction between market orientation, strategic flexibility and competition intensity elucidates variance in small firm performance over and above a contingency model and a direct relationship.

The findings contribute to the existing literature by exhibiting the effect of market orientation on firm performance. The configuration model suggests that small firms can outperform competitors in a lower competitive environment if they have high market orientation and high strategic flexibility investment. To leverage market opportunities and achieve better firm performance, small firms’ owners should analyze the usefulness of current capabilities in a changing competitive environment concurrently and align market orientation to those conditions.

The strategic management and marketing literature suggests that relationship between market orientation and performance is ambiguous. The findings offer insights to managers regarding the appropriate use of strategic flexibility in leveraging the benefits of market orientation in a highly competitive environment. Furthermore, by collecting data from the context of an emerging economy, India, the authors attempt to strengthen the applicability of market orientation in different contexts.

This paper reports the mail survey results of the marketing practices of 158 Chinese small firms in Hong Kong. The findings suggest that broad small firm marketing principles, though specifically generated from the Western countries, may not be fully suitable for some specific socio‐cultural contexts, for example Chinese society in Hong Kong. Thus, care should be taken before making generalizations about marketing in Western situations and in assuming that marketing tools and techniques are equally applicable across all places. Socio‐cultural influences should be considered when attempting to understand marketing practices of Chinese small firms.