Value Systems, Strategies and the Performance of Small and Medium-Sized Firms

Abstract

Ingolf Bamber is Professor of Management and Director of the Department "Strategie & Structures" of the Institut de Gestion de Rennes, University of Rennes, France. He is the initiator and co-ordinator of an international research project on "the value systems of small and medium-sized firms' managers and their impact on the strategic behaviour and the performance of their firms". Research teams from 7 European countries are participating in the empirical investigation whose pretest is in progress. The article describes the theoretical and methodological bases of the project. It treats, especially, the possibilities and the problems of measurement of values, objectives and strategies, gives an overview on empirical studies in the field of SME and describes the research design, the methodology chosen as well as the fundamental hypotheses of the project.