Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915

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    Strategies, uncertainty and performance of small business startups
    (Kluwer, 2000) Van Gelderen, Marco; Frese, Michael; Thurik, Roy
    Personal strategies of owners/founders of small business startups are related to performance and to environmental uncertainty. This is done using a longitudinal data set. Personal strategies are operationalized by a behavioral measure of the manners in which small business founders deal with situations. The results suggest a dynamic process between strategy and performance. Business owners that perform poorly employ a Reactive Strategy, with poor performance leading to increased use of reactive behavior. High performing business owners start out focussing on the most crucial issues (Critical Point Strategy), with high performance leading to a more top-down (Complete Planning) approach. These relations are controlled for characteristics of the environment of the firm. Strategy use is dependent upon the type and level of environmental uncertainty. Complete Planning strategy is used less frequently in a fast changing environment and more often in a complex environment. Use of Opportunistic Strategy is negatively related to the complexity of the environment, while the Reactive Strategy is used more frequently in a non-munificent environment.
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    Learning opportunities and learning behaviours of small business starters: Relations with goal achievement, skill development and satisfaction
    (Springer, 2005) Van Gelderen, Marco; Van der Sluis, Lidewey; Jansen, Paul
    Learning is a vital issue for small business starters, contributing to short term and long term business performance, as well as to personal development. This study investigates when and how small business starters learn. It specifies the situations that offer learning opportunities, as well as the learning behaviours that small business starters can employ in order to learn from these opportunities. In a cross-sectional, quantitative study of recently started small business founders, learning opportunities and learning behaviours are related to three outcome measures: a performance outcome (goal achievement), a personal growth outcome (skill development), and an affective evaluation outcome (satisfaction). The results show the importance of learning opportunities and learning behaviours in influencing these outcome variables, albeit not always in the directions we hypothesized.