Executive Characteristics, Strategic Choices and Small Firm Development: A Three-country Study of Small Textiles and Clothing Firms

Abstract

MARTYN PITT LECTURES IN THE School of Management at Bath University, England; Anna Bull and Joseph Szarka are lecturers in the School of Modern Languages at Bath University. This paper describes the results of recent three-country comparative research into the value-chain and networking structures in localised textiles communities. It links structures with firms' strategies and the managerial roles/styles of individual entrepreneurs. There are detailed comparisons of these communities and one conclusion is that each manifests a characteristic and probably unique development path. Community structures arise from (and now condition) a limited number of distinct success recipes or postures which individual firms can pursue. It is suggested that the overarching characteristic of a strong industrial community is the recognition and implementation of a genuine mutuality of self-interest among firms, based on complementarity of these recipes. In sum the postures of firms in Lyons, France, and Como, Italy, exhibit coherence as seen from the community perspective; in Leicester, England, this is less obviously true. Nonetheless there are sufficient similarities among individual firms and executives to suppose that productive managerial styles and approaches may be transferable, even though the development path of a community itself may be unique. The paper reviews the nature of these styles and concludes that further systematic research in this area offers a real prospect of advancing small firm policies and practices in the post 1992 European Community.

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