Growth intention of Moroccan SMEs in a crisis context[L’intention de croissance des PME marocaines en contexte de crise]

SMEs are the cornerstone of the Moroccan economy. They recruit, invest, and contribute strongly to economic growth. Indeed, the latter remains dependent on their growth and development. Nevertheless, contrary to what many people think, growth is not a common goal among SME managers. Some want to grow their businesses, while others are satisfied with the status quo. This research develops an in-depth analysis of the growth intention of Moroccan SMEs, while taking into account the crisis context in which it was conducted. In this sense, the study has two objectives: to understand through the eyes and perceptions of managers the impact that the crisis may have had on their business, and to understand their intention to grow during this context. After a literature review highlighting the role of the manager within the SME, and the results of the work on growth intention, we conducted, through a qualitative approach, four interviews with four Moroccan SME managers, located in Marrakech. The interviews, conducted between month 3 and month 4 of 2022, were transcribed according to the sociological method, and then analyzed by hand, through a horizontal and vertical analysis. Following this analysis, the results generated demonstrate that growth is a polyphonic concept, and that the intention to grow is protean: four modalities of the intention to grow have emerged. Strong growth intention, moderate growth intention, pending growth intention, and no growth intention. The results of this research contribute to the understanding of the perceptions of SME managers, which in return, would allow public authorities to put in place more adapted and therefore more useful support mechanisms in order to encourage them to grow.