Micro-Business Owner-Managers’ Growth Intentions in Sparsely Populated Areas in Northern Finland

This research provides new information on the prerequisites for micro firms operating in sparsely populated areas. Micro-business constitutes a numerically dominant group in every economy. In recent years, small businesses and small and medium enterprises, the latter two of which form the backbone of many countries’ economies, have attracted considerable research attention. This study has a twofold aim: (1) to highlight the scant attention paid by researchers to micro-enterprises and (2) to investigate the growth of independently owned micro-businesses and compare self evaluated growth stages with the change in the turnover volume. This case study synthesises two empirical stage models into two self-evaluation frameworks used for 53 technology- and service-based firms. The results indicate that the selected growth stages correspond relatively well to the micro-businesses’ growth.