Strategic management in SMEs in selected European countries

Abstract

The paper focuses on situation of strategic management principles implementation within the SMEs in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden, and Finland. Data come from a quota sampling research done in May-July 2014 among 1004 SMEs in the above-listed countries. Focusing on the key aspects of strategic management (setting objectives, their internal communication, coordination, and performance monitoring) authors found that the level of use of principal strategic management tools is relatively high–80 % of SMEs do set goals in the main business areas, 74 % communicates majority of plans with employees, 84 % pay significant attention to coordination, and 84 % systematically monitors performance. Results in the particular countries were very similar; major difference appeared in the case of Slovakia and Finland in the area of internal communication, where the chi-square test resulted in the lowest value – but, still, the value of 0.9941 shows almost complete compliance.