Performance characteristics of very small enterprises: funhouse mirror or obviousness?

Abstract

Very Small Enterprises (VSE) represent the great majority of businesses in Africa and provide nearly 80% of jobs. Therefore, their performance has become a subject of a great importance for their owners and/or managers, the government and the researchers. The purpose of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the performance characteristics of Very Small Enterprises (VSE). A survey was conducted with a sample of 166 Very Small Enterprises from different sectors of economic activity in several cities of Cameroon. The structural equation model is used to analyse the data collected. The main results clearly show that the quality of the personnel and the commercial dynamism represent the most important performance characteristics of Very Small Enterprises (VSE).

Keywords:

• Very small enterprises
• performance
• quality of the personnel
• commercial dynamism
• nature of the organisation

Note

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 These ethical problems concern sometimes deplorable working conditions, low wages, non-payment of taxes, lack of accounting (Kombou, 1999)