Asian SME business doctoral research outcomes

Abstract

The paper documents Doctoral research undertaken by graduates of the Graduate College of Management of Southern Cross University in Australia, as they proceeded to research programs to meet the requirements of the Doctor of Business Administration or Doctor of Philosophy Awards. Up to the end of 2008, more than 250 candidates have graduated in fields of management and a relatively high proportion of these graduates either focused completely on some aspect of small enterprise management or used small enterprises in Asia in their fields studies towards the research degree. A small enterprise is defined as one owned and controlled by a few entrepreneurs often members of the same family. Small enterprises tend to have a relatively small share of the market but collectively are most significant in their contribution to national growth and development. The importance of small enterprises is documented and doctoral research outcomes which focus on the characteristics of small enterprises and their owners, various functional areas of management such as finance, marketing, human resource management and systems and factors which influence success in these functional areas, small enterprise growth and development and strategies, management style and success in the small enterprises are reviewed and finally, small enterprise policies which have been or may be adopted by national governments and organizations to support the growth and development of small enterprise are examined. The paper ends with a review of future directions of doctoral research on aspects of small enterprise management in Asia.