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erry, 2001). According to statistics from Dun & Bradstreet (cited in Lewis, 2004), 88.7% of all business failures are due to management mistakes. 'While everyone agrees that bad management is the prime cause of failure no one agrees what a 'bad management' means nor how it can be recognised except that after company has collapsed - then everyone agrees how badly managed it was' (Argenti, 1976). In this essay, under bad management we understand the following particular sources of underperformance across small businesses. Firstly, the lack of market research and industry experience is a beginning of an end. The internal resources of a firm must match the needs of the environment to which the firm caters. Lack of experience in the industry will lead to poor organisation of a firm and its resources (Keats, 1988). Equally, the inability to target profitable market segments and identify market opportunities will probably allow a business to survive but will restrict the pace at which it can grow. Secondly, the lack of well-educated human capital and entrepreneurial skill can create a great barrier in pursuing expansionary strategies for small businesses, which cannot offer competitive salaries for industry experts and thus rely on their own, often overly positive, 'business instinct'. Mostly during the start-up phase of a new business, lack of entrepreneurial skills in an owner can cause a business to fail. Entrepreneurs generally have a high need for achievement and social awareness, and they are high risk takers (D'Amboise, 1992). Last but not least, failing to plan means planning to fail; and thus poor planning and control techniques finalise the commonly recognised management sources of business' inability to grow. Nine out of ten business failures in the United States are caused by a lack of general business management skills and planning (Bangs, 2002). A good business plan helps identify the market opportunities, cash-flows, cost structure, available resources, and strengths and weakness of a business. Without a clear strategy and control over its implementation small firms face a very little chance of successfully growing their business.

With all the evidence of business' underperformance and failure cited above what can be said about the small firms and their owners who managed to keep their businesses running for decades or even managed to turn them into big retail chains or manufacturing industry leaders? What is it that keeps small businesses away from their demise? The answer is growth. According to the survey done by Phillips and Kirchhoff (1989) if an entry firm having one to four employees grows at all, even adds only one employee a year, its survival rate more than doubles to 65 percent; as opposed to no growth survival rate at 26 percent. And, as the extent of growth increases, the survival rate increases as well, ultimately reaching 77.5 percent for high growth firms. Thus the question remains, what is it that successful small businesses do to achieve positive growth?

What defines entrepreneurs who are able to grow quickly?

Primarily, it is avoiding the common nascent entrepreneur's roots of failure listed in the first section of this essay. In other words, before any firm can engage in any growth strategies it has to ensure it has researched its target market, identified opportunities and picked the right timing for entry in terms of the economic cycles. The evidence from survey carried out in 本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。