Priority Areas for Research in the Operations of Small Enterprises

Failure and sickness of small venture during project cycle has received very little attention by the developmental institutions, specialized research institutions and management specialists. Failure and sickness is caused due to problems in pre-operative and operative phases of a project. In operative phase, which broadly could be considered as project pre-planning and implementation phase, internal and external factors cause delay in project implementation. Delay in implementation often seriously jeopardizes the financial viability of the project right from the initial stage. Major problems in operative phase include faulty project formulation and implementation, non-availability of raw materials, poor financial management, training and retraining of manpower, marketing problems and technical problems associated with production. Survey research and case research are important methods of research in small ventures. Survey research is not only time consuming but also does not provide insight at micro-level into the reasons, which lead to failure and sickness in small ventures. Case researches of selected small enterprises from various regions of the country can be an extremely effective tool for generating the required understanding of small business. It is desirable that major specialized research institutes should take the lead in generating ideas and providing regional and state levels should pool the researches and share the funding with each other.