Understanding Organizational Characteristics in UK SMEs; The Factors and R&D

This article is concerned with the importance of organisation management and its characteristics in business performance in SMEs, and tested by four main aspects: managerial strategies, organisational structure, leader behaviour, and R&D activities. These relationships were tested with questionnaire data from a random sample of 87 firms. Results from simple statistics on each issue showed that SMEs have focused on the corporate growth and management goals, the democratic leadership, decentralisation in organisational structure, and the technology development plans. Results from correlation analyses not only found significant relationships between managerial strategy and R&D activities but also showed differences in R&D activities according to structural status or leadership style, respectively.