Sascha Kraus

Strategic planning in smaller enterprises – new empirical findings

Purpose – To analyze the performance implications of essential elements of strategic planning (time span, formalization, frequency of control, and use of planning instruments) in smaller enterprises in a simultaneous way.Design/methodology/approach – The main methods being used for this article were a thorough review of literature for the development of hypotheses and a logistical regression analysis for the empirical evaluation. The study is based on a representative sample of small Austrian enterprises (nu2009=u2009290).Findings – Planning formalization has a positive and highly significant impact on the probability of belonging to the group of growth firms, whereas other aspects of strategic planning (time horizon, strategic instruments, and control) did not contribute to performance.Research limitations/implications – Employee growth has been used as an indicator for firm performance. Other indicators (e.g. sales growth, profitability, and subjective evaluation of the entrepreneur) might be used to draw a mor...

Mutual trust as a key to internationalization of SMEs

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer an understanding as to whether trust‐based coordination is feasible in the context of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SME) internationalization processes, and if so, what impact these cooperative arrangements can have on corporate success.Design/methodology/approach – To answer the research hypotheses, multiple regression analyses based on a postal questionnaire survey (nu2009=u200958 SMEs from Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia) were computed.Findings – It is found that self‐commitment facilitates the establishment and maintenance of heterarchic cross‐border cooperation relationships of SMEs that cannot evolve based on market or hierarchical coordination. It is also found that the establishment of trust‐based cooperation relationships with foreign partners positively affects the success of the participating companies.Research limitations/implications – Only Slovenian and Czech enterprises and their internationalization have been investigated and compared ...

Configurations of new ventures in entrepreneurship research: contributions and research gaps

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a structured overview of the application of the configuration approach in the context of new and small ventures.Design/methodology/approach – The paper surveys the empirical literature in the leading entrepreneurship journals from 1994 to 2006.Findings – There are a small, but significant number of studies that deal with the empirical identification and examination of new venture types. However, researchers are just beginning to tap the potential of the configuration approach. More specifically, configuration analyses are still rather heterogeneous, and no study deals with the identification of development configuration in the context of new ventures yet.Research limitations/implications – Since the configuration approach has already delivered interesting results in research on new ventures, we might see additional studies based on this approach in the future. However, there are practical and theoretical considerations to be taken into account.Practical im...

The role of pre-start-up planning in new small business

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between pre-start-up planning - i.e. written business plans prior to enterprise foundation - and success of small businesses. Our own empirical results, based upon a longitudinal survey of 468 small businesses from Austria, support the claim that the existence of written business plans is beneficial for company success. A positive relationship could be identified by the use of a logistic regression model. Furthermore, a significant difference between pre-start-up planners and their non-planning counterparts could be identified and thus confirm our second hypothesis that pre-start-up planning leads to ongoing planning.

How innovation and entrepreneurship can conquer uncertainty and complexity: learning about the unexpected

In recent times, it has become obvious that linear models of the world in general and management in particular do not carry as far as we expected them to. However, the question of how we can find a clue how to deal with a world that is a complex aggregation of evolving interactions is still unanswered. Much of what was seen as real, machine-like, determined and objective seems to be unpredictable, indefinable and subjective since the middle of the last century. The knowledge required for identifying the best alternative is beyond the possibilities of actors. Thus dealing with uncertainty, complexity and the search for novelty are becoming increasingly important. Strategic management science provides a suitable tool for constructing aisles of knowledge into the forest of uncertainty: strategic planning. We argue that one possible key to make the future manageable despite its overwhelming complexity might be to typify future developments based on experiences form past and present. In this way, economic actors may drive corridors of future development into the unknown dark of the future.

Zwischenbetriebliche Kooperation und Netzwerk

Diese Risiken sprechen grundsätzlich für eine Absicherung des Ressourcenzugangs etwa durch Selbsterstellung oder Akquisition der Ressourcenquelle. Wenn jedoch gleichzeitig der zukünftige Wert der Ressource nicht abschätzbar ist, ist der Aufbau entsprechender Kapazitäten zur Selbsterstellung wegen drohender sunk costs verbaut. Der Versuch, den Ressourcenzugang bei eingeschränktem Engagement zu sichern, führt dann zu kooperativen Arrangements. Ebenso kommt es zu Kooperationslösungen, wenn die Möglichkeiten zur Integration dieser Ressourcen aus anderen Gründen verstellt sind (Zeit, Kapitalbedarf, rechtliche Barrieren).