Asoka Gunaratne

Promoting Post Start-up Small Businesses: Conceptualising a Model Asoka Gunaratne

The challenges facing entrepreneurial owner-managers (OMs) in developing countries have never been greater than today. These businesses are typically hampered by lack of technical skills, managerial competencies, and financial resources. Now they compete not only with other businesses in the same street, district, town, region, or home country but also with global companies operating beyond their home market. Within this context, this book acquaints the reader with the challenges faced by OMs in developing countries and the pragmatic, creative approaches these entrepreneurs use to overcome the barriers to their survival and growth. The book presents a ?wish list? of assistance these OMs hope will result through the wise adoption of appropriate policy by their domestic governments. However, many fail to survive the first few years of their struggle for existence. Accordingly, the book presents detailed results derived from a study of small businesses in Sri Lanka. The study identifies factors that contribute to business failure such as the problems of low awareness of support, non-availability of support, and the miss-match between the support available and the support needed.