The Strategic Behaviour of SMEs

Vanessa Yanes-Estévez, Ana María García-Pérez and Juan Ramón Oreja-Rodríguez
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Vanessa Yanes-Estévez: Departamento de Dirección de Empresa e Historia Económica, IUDE, Universidad de La Laguna, 38200 Tenerife, Spain
Ana María García-Pérez: Departamento de Dirección de Empresa e Historia Económica, IUDE, Universidad de La Laguna, 38200 Tenerife, Spain
Juan Ramón Oreja-Rodríguez: Departamento de Dirección de Empresa e Historia Económica, IUDE, Universidad de La Laguna, 38200 Tenerife, Spain

Administrative Sciences, 2018, vol. 8, issue 4, 1-21

Abstract: This paper analyses the strategic behaviour of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and identifies the entrepreneurial, technological, and administrative problems of the Miles and Snow typology (1978). This typology is applied to a sample of SMEs in the Canary Islands (Spain) by using a multi-item questionnaire. Then, the Rasch Measurement Theory is applied to obtain the results, with the linear continuum as a key tool. By applying the Rasch Measurement, there is a coherency between the data treatment and the new interpretation of the Miles and Snow typology (1978), which lists 4 types that are close to trends than to pure types (for example, Sollosy 2013 ). There are differences between the administrative and the technological problems, with their technological approach being more prospector and their administrative one, which is more defender. This shows an almost absence of enterprises with purely defender or prospector behaviours. These results show that SMEs do not follow any comprehensive framework in order to develop their strategies. Managers should analyse their strategic situation and consider the alignment of the three problems.

Keywords: strategic behaviour; Miles and Snow typology; small and medium-sized enterprises; Rasch Measurement Theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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