THE KNOWLEDGE GAPS THAT PREVENT MICRO-FIRM OWNER-MANAGERS' FROM DEVELOPING THEIR BUSINESSES IN NUTS-3 AREA

Micro-firms are a dominant group in every economy. However, in the current literature, little attention has been paid to this small and medium-sized enterprises subgroup. This study is a longitudinal case study detailing the experiences of a real-life experiment in which micro-business owner-manager...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inICSB World Conference Proceedings pp. 1 - 5
Main Authors Hänninen, Kai, Saarela, Martti, Simunaniemi, Anna-Mari
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington International Council for Small Business (ICSB) 01.01.2019
Subjects
Case studies
Economic growth
Employment
Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship
Globalization
Innovations
Knowledge
Managers
Regions
Research design
Small & medium sized enterprises-SME
Small business
Strategic management
Theory
Finland
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Summary:Micro-firms are a dominant group in every economy. However, in the current literature, little attention has been paid to this small and medium-sized enterprises subgroup. This study is a longitudinal case study detailing the experiences of a real-life experiment in which micro-business owner-managers participated in face-to-face networking events in the North Ostrobothnia, Finland. North Ostrobothnia is NUTS 3 region and lags behind the rest of the country in terms of economic growth and innovative capacity. As a result, eight (8) knowledge gap categories were identified. After analysing each knowledge gap category, it was determined that the micro-business owner-managers felt they primarily had a lack of knowledge in issues related to entrepreneurship, followed by marketing and sales.