Differences in psychological strategies of failed and operational business owners in the Fiji Islands

Citation

van Gelder, J.-.-L. (2008), "Differences in psychological strategies of failed and operational business owners in the Fiji Islands", Strategic Direction, Vol. 24 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/sd.2008.05624aad.006

Differences in psychological strategies of failed and operational business owners in the Fiji Islands

Differences in psychological strategies of failed and operational business owners in the Fiji Islands

van Gelder J.-L., de Vries R.E., Frese M., Goutbeek J.-P. Journal of Small Business Management, July 2007, Vol. 45, No. 3, Start page: 388, No. of pages: 13

Purpose – To explore differences between owners of successful/surviving and failed businesses. Design/methodology/approach – Observes that prior studies have looked at external and internal business causes of failure, rather than at owner characteristics and behaviour, hypothesizing that failed business owners use reactive strategies, that they do not use complete or critical point planning, or opportunistic strategies, that they set lower and less specific goals, and that they have a lower degree of human capital than successful owners. Tests the hypotheses by analysing interview responses of 71 operational and 20 failed Fijian business owners, notes differences between indigenous Fijian and Indo-Fijian owners, emphasizes that operational does not imply success, and uses the term “operational” to describe successful/surviving businesses. Classes strategies as reactive, habit, opportunistic, critical point and complete, gauges human capital in terms of prior business/industry experience and education level, and employs discriminant analysis to compare the two populations. Findings – Finds that operational owners set more specific goals, had more business experience and followed a complete planning strategy more often than failed owners, reporting no differences between the two populations regarding the difficulty of goals set, education level and use of critical point planning. Originality/value – Information for policy-makers and entrepreneur support agencies.ISSN: 0047-2778Reference: 36AU332DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-627X.2007.00219.x

Keywords: Business development, Business planning, Company failures, Corporate strategy, Entrepreneurs, Experience, Fiji, Human capital theory, Small enterprises