[Barriers to Growth in Small Businesses]

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW1

Defining barriers to growth and comparison1

The semantic of barriers2

Product purchasing2

Internet to make purchases3

Brand image and personality of consumers5

Use of Technology6

Price discrimination7

Lifting Barriers8

Types of barriers9

Market Barriers9

Team10

Positioning10

Value proposition10

Marketing Strategies11

Sales productivity11

Customer satisfaction11

Number of Barriers12

Barriers to growth in small business in Kuwait14

Effects of barriers for the small business16

Summary18

REFERENCES19

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Defining barriers to growth and comparison

In the recent years increasing attention has been paid to the role played by the small sized firms in economic growth and innovation. The important thing to be noted here is that small firms are a source of strong competition in the market and their role is to explore the new technology and they help in creating positive effects for the for the firm's ability to grow. Small enterprise starts their business and there is little known about them if they would succeed or not. Barriers to growth are defined as the barriers which don't allow the small enterprises to flourish and expand their business. There are many barriers of for the business to grow. They range from technological to market barriers. Some of these barriers are out of the control of the company and technology doesn't work for those companies. According to Van Slyke (2001), small businesses face a number of barriers when seeking to effectively employ information technology including e-commerce. In fact, from 1990 to 1995, small businesses created over three fourths of the new jobs in the UK (Russel, 2003, p. 08).

In essence, small businesses need different types of assistance, such as financial, material, technical, advisory, education, etc., because companies differ in size, form of owners, industry type, stage of development, sources of capital, and leadership (Shuman, Seeger, 1986, p. 7). Approximately 82.5% of small firms used some form of credit in 1998, along with multiple sources of capital that included their savings, loans from family, friends, and business loans from financial institutions (“Small Business by the Numbers,” 2003). The most likely source of information for most small business people is a personal friend, based on research reported by the Aspen Institute in 1998, according to the National Forum on Information Literacy, 2000. According to O'Donnell (2004), with regard to friendship, it was found that friendship content occurred in, and had an effect on, the owner-managers' networking activities with their existing customers, domestic market competitors, business friends, and colleagues.

The semantic of barriers

There are many semantics of doing small business, there is normally one person, or a very small group of people, who are in control and typically shape the firm and its future. Being a small business owner brings satisfying accomplishments, both directly and indirectly through earnings, prestige, power, and knowledge of what the product does for the individual (Alford, 2001, p. 693). In other words, new business owners tend to operate enterprises in the same field in which they have previously been employed, with most believing that they can do better than their Former organizations (Baron, 1991, p.1362). The survey has been carried out twice before; ...