engleski

The growth of small business: A study of it`s development in Croatia and Slovenia

The paper is focused on time series research regarding the development and possibilities of small business growth in Croatia and Slovenia in comparison with medium and large enterprise performance. In the research which is based on long term project, we analyzed the reasons of some indicator trends and determined the factors which may have caused these differences and derived our opinion about future growth of small enterprises in countries in transition. The growth of small enterprises has to be considered in accordance with the stage of development in the life cycle of firm. In theory they are several different stages of development: existence, survival, success-disengage, success-growth, takeoff and resource-maturity. (2) In which of this stages are small enterprises in Croatia and Slovenia? Between them exist some differences, which depend on the importance of some factors as: resources, financial conditions, personal and management skills, manager goals and strategy, etc. Considering indicators, we can say that small enterprises in Croatia and Slovenia are essentially in the same stage of development. They are between second and third stages(survival and success-disengage and growth). As result of analysis, it is concluded that Slovenian small business is more developed in the aspects of efficiency and liquidity although not as successful as they need to be. During the period of 1993-2000, Slovenian small business did not grow as rapid as Croatian but have more future perspectives. This is connected with overall economy which is more stable than Croatian. Therein-small business has important share considering overall industry profitability because they contributed approximately with 1 of total income and it is tendency of increasing share in overall net income from 3.4% in 1998. to 12.5% in 1999. On the other hand, Croatian small business due, to overall economic situation has operated with losses in 1999 (share in overall economy 23.5%). It is obvious that macroeconomic policy must be changed or it will have negative influence to future development of small business in Croatia.

small business; growth; development; efficiency

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