PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an insight into small firm entrepreneurs' perceptions of success and how these perceptions affect the performance of a firm. The emphasis is on non‐financial measures of success and their interaction with the financial indicators of a firm's performance.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a comparative analysis of two separate studies conducted in the same geographical area in Finland. The studies were concerned with micro‐businesses in the industries of craft and rural tourism.FindingsThe study finds that non‐financial meters of success that are affected by the entrepreneur's motivations and goals influence the financial performance of the small firm. Making a living is important, but going beyond that is not often seen of great concern. Consequently, the entrepreneurs are likely to measure their performance by other criteria and find success, e.g. in job satisfaction and satisfied customers.Research limitations/implicationsIn the data collection process, the used questions and themes were not identical. The main themes of performance, growth and success are, however, comparable.Practical implicationsThe paper provides useful information about small firm entrepreneurs' perceptions and attitudes of success and growth and how these affect the management of the firm.Originality/valueThis paper brings empirical evidence to the studies of factors affecting small firm performance. In addition, it offers useful insight into the non‐financial measures of success.

Purpose – The present study sheds light on the role of strategic orientations (SOs) in explaining business growth. The purpose of this paper is to examine how different SOs, namely learning orientation, entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and brand orientation simultaneously affect business performance measured with brand performance, market performance and business growth in SME context and whether these effects vary across countries. Design/methodology/approach – An extensive data set of 1,120 effective responses is collected from two European countries, namely Hungary, representing a post socialist rapidly growing market, and Finland with a stable, highly developed and competitive economy. A multigroup moderation analysis is conducted. Confirmatory factor analysis is used in testing measurement invariance, subsequently followed by structural equation modeling procedure used in testing research hypotheses developed on the basis of a literature review. Findings – The results show that entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and brand orientation have a positive effect on business growth in SMEs in both Hungary and Finland through brand and market performance. With regard to learning orientation, a positive yet somewhat weak effect on growth is found only in the Hungarian sample. The moderation analysis reveals that country moderates several of the hypothesized paths from SOs to business performance. Originality/value – Prior studies on SOs have mainly focussed on single orientations at any given time. However, researchers increasingly argue that many firms are better off if they build their strategies on multiple SOs. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first empirical studies to address multiple (four) SOs in the same research model. Furthermore, little is known about if and how the performance effects of different SOs vary across countries.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to get a deeper understanding of how the concept of marketing is seen and put into practice in SMEs. Furthermore, it seeks to examine whether the perceptions and practices differ according to the size, industry and customers of the SMEs. Design/methodology/approach -The study was conducted among SMEs in three industries in eastern Finland. Findings -Marketing was seen as a means to inform the customers about the enterprise and its offerings. SME marketers were also interested in creating and maintaining customer relationships. The main aim of marketing seemed to be to create sales. Marketing thought and practices cannot be regarded as being uniform within SMEs. The results show that they vary depending on firm size and customers.Originality/value -The study offers an insight into the little researched area of comparing marketing within SMEs. It brings empirical evidence of the perceptions of marketing and how they affect marketing management in small enterprises.

The aim is to examine whether growing, stable, and declining small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) differ from one another in terms of market orientation and brand orientation. The results show that growing SMEs have adopted market and brand orientations to a greater extent than have the stable or declining ones. They also suggest that these orientations can prove to be helpful in achieving different kinds of growth goals. Thus, in order to support the growth of SMEs, more information and training should be offered to them about issues relating to these orientations.