SME Growth in a Recession: What Does a Growing Business Tell? - Open Journal of Business and Management

OJBM > Vol.8 No.1, January 2020

SME Growth in a Recession: What Does a Growing Business Tell? ()

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DOI: 10.4236/ojbm.2020.81013 881 Downloads 2,968 Views Citations

Author(s)

Milan Gyanwali

Affiliation(s)

De Montfort University, Leicester, England.

ABSTRACT

This article talks about growing small businesses in a recession and examines management strategies that made the company grow. Recessionary periods are accepted tough for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to survive and grow, yet some do. SME performance is discussed associating with different factors including barriers, business characteristics, owner-manager lifestyle and networks. Prior studies have a significant contribution in exploring aggregate SME growth phenomena, but there is a little understanding of how SMEs grow in the recessionary periods. This study used a pluralist methodology with the participant action research as a primary approach, case study as a design and mix-method strategy to collect and analyse data. The research is dominant by qualitative research where such data were collected from a series of informal interviews and observation. Similarly, quantitative data such as business records and financial information were gathered from primary and secondary sources. The case study firm implemented two management strategies: learning in the organisation and restructuring the organisation to achieve growth during the recession of 2008-2009. Even though the precise impact of these strategies is challenging to establish, both learning and restructuring strategies were making the firm grow in the recession of 2008-2009. Since SMEs operate in a context, any “ready-to-use” and “one-size-fits-all” strategies and advice do not help individual businesses grow. This paper will be of interest to all the people who are involved in making the SMEs grow in recessionary periods.

KEYWORDS

SMEs, Business Growth, Recession, Action Research

Share and Cite:

Gyanwali, M. (2020) SME Growth in a Recession: What Does a Growing Business Tell?. Open Journal of Business and Management, 8, 208-230. doi: 10.4236/ojbm.2020.81013.

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