Crisis management in small and very small businesses

Abstract

The crisis management field is characterized by many debates (Bundy et al, 2016). This literature review aims to identify crisis management practices in small and very small businesses that are characterized by the presence of an owner-manager who makes decisions (Floriad, 2010). In fact, the literature analysis addressing our research problem reveals that crisis concept definition has two major approaches, the first consider this concept as a threatening event while the other one sees it as a result of a process triggered by an event and contains numerous internal managerial errors (Roux-Dufort, 2009). In addition, the literature highlights the scarcity of studies dictated to very small and small businesses, although these businesses are more vulnerable to crisis due to their lack of resources. We presented owner-managers practices according to the crisis management process which consists in studying the different responses before, during and after the crisis. The literature shows that most of the small and very small businesses do not plan for crisis, owners-managers make different decisions: commercial and financial actions during the crisis and capitalize this management experience to modify their business practices.

Keywords: Crisis, management crisis, owner-manager,small business, very small business.

JEL Classification: L2 L26

Paper type: Theoretical Research