Success and Goals: An Exploratory Research in Small Enterprises

Goals are important because they guide behaviour and influence performance level. This article aims to identify how small and medium sized enterprises define success, which are the goals that guide them and which factors influence the setting of these goals. Several factors related to the enterprise, not the entrepreneur, were tested. The results show that there is no association between company's goals and those factors - except for one particular type of ability, namely the marketing ability. This makes us believe that in small and medium sized enterprises, the entrepreneur has the most important role in setting the company's goals.