Title: Does a business plan really matter for a small or medium-sized new venture?: three types of new ventures in Taiwan

Authors: Han Sheng Lei

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, 123 University Road, Section 3, Douliou, Yunlin 64002, Taiwan

Abstract: Numerous debates exist on the efficacy of business plans on new venture performance, particularly when the new venture is either small or medium sized. The empirical evidence on these debates is also conflicting. We examine the effect of a comprehensively conceived business plan on three types of new venture performance considering other key successful factors (entrepreneurial orientation, non-knowledge resources and knowledge resources) and under various contingencies. The results show that a sufficiently conceived business plan has a positive effect on the new venture performance regardless of the venture size and type, but the effect of a business plan on the performance is higher with a larger initial investment of a new venture. We also observe that the effect of a business plan on performance is lower for domestic corporate-based ventures than for those that are personal or foreign-based.

Keywords: business plans; new venture performance; personal-based new ventures; corporate-based new ventures; entrepreneurial orientation; knowledge resources; Taiwan; entrepreneurship; small and medium-sized enterprises; SMEs.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2014.062132

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2014 Vol.22 No.1, pp.89 - 105

Published online: 07 Jun 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article