مدیریت و اداره امور در شرکتهای کوچک و متوسط هلندی

Small and medium-sized enterprises are important engines to stimulate the economic growth of a country. The survival of these firms is partly dependent on their human capital availability. Using strategic leadership theory, this paper examines the characteristics of the entrepreneur/manager, the top management team and the board of directors in Dutch SMEs. Empirical data identifies the entrepreneurs/managers as the most important decision makers. However, to support their decision-making process in the current competitive business environment, two thirds of the CEOs have created top management teams. CEOs and top management team executives combine their industry and functional knowledge to create the necessary firm know-how. Less than half of the firms have adopted a supervisory board. A reason for this could be the CEO’s limited knowledge on the concept of governance. The paper concludes that entrepreneurs/managers of SMEs should be made aware of the strategic knowledge and networking advantages both top-management team and supervisory board members can offer.

In The Netherlands, as well as in most other countries of the world, small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) represent the vast majority (99%) of all enterprises (OECD, 1998). The contribution of SMEs to economic growth, job creation and innovation has been widely recognised (Audretsch and Keilbach, 2004 and Van Stel et al., 2005). However, many of these SMEs do not survive their first years in business (Storey, 1994, Almus, 2004 and Persson, 2004), and as such, do not provide these benefits to society. Besides macro economic (economic climate) and firm-level characteristics (size, age, resource-based arguments), human capital and managerial behaviour are of fundamental importance in explaining a venture’s long-term survival (Gimeno et al., 1997, Berry, 1998, Ciavarella et al., 2004 and Aragón-Sanchez and Sánchez-Marín, 2005). Nevertheless, limited data is available about human capital characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises. The goal of this paper is to fill this gap in the literature by describing managerial capital characteristics of Dutch SMEs. Subsequently, the characteristics of the entrepreneurs, their top management teams and boards of directors will be assessed. The remaining part of this paper is structured as follows. First we explore past research on managerial capital in SMEs. Secondly the methodology of the study is described, followed by a discussion of the empirical results. The paper ends with conclusions and managerial recommendations.

As small and medium-sized enterprises are important engines stimulating the economic growth of a country, the goal of this paper was to examine one of the factors affecting the survival of these firms, namely their managerial capital. Using strategic leadership theory, we assessed the characteristics of the CEO, the top management team and the board of directors in a sample of 110 Dutch SMEs. The Entrepreneur/CEOs of the firms in our sample have a relatively high degree of education. Moreover, as most of the SMEs successfully passed the start-up stage, the CEOs have ample experience in their function, the company and the industry. Although the CEO clearly is the main decision-taker, more than sixty percent of them established top-management teams to strengthen the strategic decision-making process. The TMTs are small (on average 1.32 members), but the executives strengthen the know-how of the company. Amongst the important selection criteria for new TMT members are knowledge/experience in strategic decision making and knowledge/experience of the business/industry. The study also illustrates the rather static composition of the SMEs’ TMT. The installation of a supervisory board is less established in the Dutch SMEs. Not including those firms obliged to install a supervisory board based on the legal requirements of the Structural Act, only 12 CEOs initiated this governance mechanism on a voluntary basis within their firm. Their main goal is to improve firm continuity, protect shareholder interests and to have a kind of sounding board when taking important strategic decisions. In at least 20 of the SMEs studied, the CEO is the only decision-maker, as neither a TMT nor a supervisory board is installed. The average size of these firms is not significantly different from the other firms in the sample. However, eleven of these SMEs are family firms, in which the CEOs highly value their independence in ownership and management. The CEOs also perceive their environment as being more competitive than the other firms in the sample. To compensate for the limited managerial capital available within their firm, the entrepreneurs could opt for outsider assistance as an additional knowledge resource (Chrisman and McMullan 2004). However, results of this study indicate that these CEOs use significantly less outsider assistance (accountant, consultants, banks, lawyers) than the average SME. We argue that CEOs/entrepreneurs of small and medium-sized as well as family businesses should be made aware of the strategic knowledge and networking advantages both the top-management team and supervisory board members can offer. The current competitive environment the SMEs are operating in demands a high level of customer-orientation as well as an emphasis on new (technological) knowledge development. Additional TMT or board executives can add product, industry, and strategic knowledge, offer access to new resources and networks as well as create legitimacy. Although initially human capital cost may rise, strategic leadership and governance theory suggest improved company results in the long term. Furthermore, SME managers could consider implementing elements of the new governance regulations proposed within their countries. Supervisory boards not only monitor, but also provide the CEO with additional advice. As has been stipulated by Jain and Gumpert (1980), board members do provide expertise that can compensate for small companies’ managerial deficiencies. Moreover, good governance practices increase the firm’s legitimacy versus clients, suppliers and society. This paper adds value to the current research on human and managerial capital in SMEs, by describing the characteristics of the SMEs CEO, TMT and supervisory board. Additional research is clearly needed on the behavioral aspects of the decision-making processes within SMEs’ TMTs and supervisory boards. Conflict within these teams can obviously offset the advantages of knowledge diversity. Moreover, longitudinal performance data should be linked to the managerial capital data, to empirically verify several of the strategic leadership hypotheses within an SME or entrepreneurial context.