Small business owner: manager or entrepreneur?

• Grant number: 14/10230-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2014
• End date: June 30, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Administration - Administration of Specific Sectors
• Principal Investigator: Edmundo Escrivão Filho
• Grantee: Ana Carolina Deriggi
• Host Institution: Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The general objective of this research is to identify the management style of the small businesses owner: managerial or entrepreneurial. The specific objectives are: 1) identify small business specificities; 2) verify the owner's work; 3) evaluate their role and the importance given to them; 4) observe if they tend to focus on innovation or controlling activities; 5) classify the functions that leaders realize as typical of managers or entrepreneurs. Small business that is, at the same time, producer of wealth and diffuser of technologies, is closely linked to the concept of entrepreneurship. The entrepreneur is the one who innovates radically, destabilizing the economic system and creating a new cycle of expansion. However, due to difficulties of creating and ensuring the grow up of small business, such as resource scarcity and difficulty in attracting or retaining professionals at managerial level, vulnerability and low holding control over the external organizational environment, some small businesses owners are tempted to copy the large corporations, acting as managers instead of entrepreneurs. The research method will be a survey, with a pre-defined and structured questionnaire to obtain data about the owner, the company, entrepreneurial performance, managerial performance and organizational system, which will be analyzed through statistical measures. The technology-based firms of São Carlos-SP was chosen sector. It is expected to obtain a conclusion about the profile of small business owners associated with innovation performance, planning, company size, strategy and delegation of decision-making.