Leadership roles, attitudes, and competencies required to develop firm-level dynamic capabilities enabling transition from SME to big business

Abstract

Small and medium sized enterprises suffer from high rates of business discontinuance largely due to leadership incompetence. The consequences of the inability of leaders to establish viable business propositions and sustainable competitive advantage extend beyond firm-level competiveness and are a matter of macroeconomic prosperity. The purpose of this study was to contribute to the academic conversation on dynamic managerial capabilities by specifically focussing on the first attribute that underpins the concept: human capital. Moreover, the purpose of this study was to identify specifically what roles, attitudes, and competencies leaders require to more effectively develop firm-level dynamic capabilities enabling transition from SME to big business. A two stage inductive exploratory methodology was adopted enabling data collection from a pre-qualified sample of 12 prominent entrepreneurs. The first stage of data collection was a qualifying questionnaire and the second stage involved primary data collection by means of in-person semi structured interviews. The key outcomes of this study are that as businesses grow and transition, leaders need to adopt the right roles, have the right attitudes, acquire the right competencies, and be mindful of external enablers and inhibitors in order to develop dynamic capabilities that with effectively transition them from SME to big business.