ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the entrepreneur within the new small firm is regarded as taking complex rather than simple actions, which determine whether he or she will remain in business. Thus instead of simply choosing output, as in the standard analysis of the competitive firm, the entrepreneur may take actions which involve choices about markets, finance, organisation, innovation and much else besides (cf. Acar, 1993; Chaston, 1997; Verhees and Meulenberg, 2004; Yusuf and Saffu, 2005; Sadler-Smith et al., 2003; Hankinson, 2000). To explore this approach, very detailed information on actions within the small firm is required. This chapter shows how this was deployed.