Title: Entrepreneur characteristics and management practices: implications for SMEs' development

Authors: Abdullah Al-Owaihan, Rashed Sh. Al-Ajmi, C.P. Rao

Addresses: Department of Management and Marketing, College of Business Administration, Kuwait University, P.O. Box 5486, Safat 13055, Kuwait. ' Department of Management and Marketing, College of Business Administration, Kuwait University, P.O. Box 5486, Safat 13055, Kuwait. ' Department of Management and Marketing, College of Business Administration, Kuwait University, P.O. Box 5486, Safat 13055, Kuwait

Abstract: The current economic crisis heightened the importance of the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in all the countries. Usually the SMEs| development programmes are developed and implemented for all the SMEs with standard programmes. In this paper, it is argued that SMEs are very diverse in their entrepreneurial characteristics. Such diversity of entrepreneur characteristics would require taking into account the demographic diversity of SMEs| entrepreneurs in designing and implanting the developmental programmes. To test this overall research hypothesis, an empirical study was conducted in Kuwait. The research revealed significant diversity of entrepreneurs across a number of demographic characteristics and hence, the need to tailor made the much needed SMEs developmental programmes.

Keywords: SMEs; entrepreneur demographic diversity; SME development programmes; Kuwait; small and medium-sized enterprises; entrepreneurship.

DOI: 10.1504/JIBED.2009.033739

Journal for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development, 2009 Vol.4 No.4, pp.243 - 264

Published online: 29 Jun 2010 *

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