Analysis of practical aspects making management decisions in small business

Abstract

The issue of making managerial decisions in the practice of small business is considered. The key idea of the article is to prove a number of hypotheses regarding the practice of making management decisions by small business enterprises. The purpose of the article: to analyze the practice of making managerial decisions in a small business and summarize its characteristic features. Method (methodology). To achieve the goal, a number of general methods of scientific research were used: comparison, systematization and generalization. As well as special methods: expert evaluations, empirical research and methods of processing questionnaire data - to confirm the proposed hypotheses regarding the practice of managerial decision-making by small enterprises. The results of the research are presented based on a questionnaire survey of 42 small business enterprises of Odessa and Odesa region. A number of hypotheses regarding the preference of small enterprises for management decisions of a current and operational nature have been confirmed; predominant centralized system of management decision-making; the presence of problems in making managerial decisions by small enterprises at the stage of growth. It was established that the maximum horizon for making management decisions is the period from a quarter to a year. Making decisions related to solving daily problems takes up the lion's share of entrepreneurs' time. It has been proven that owners and managers of small business enterprises in the process of developing and making management decisions are guided mainly by their own experience, intuition, as well as a number of other subjective factors. It has been established that less than half of small business entrepreneurs make decisions based on the suggestions of the company's personnel or on the basis of the recommendations of external consultants. Delegation of authority in small business almost does not happen. It is substantiated that at the stage of growth in the activity of small enterprises, problems in making managerial decisions appear. The causes of the problems have been determined, which include: lack of established task priorities, mismatch between the number of tasks and the amount of human resources, lack of clearly established information exchange processes and decision-making procedures. The inadequacy of methodological developments regarding management decision-making taking into account the specifics of small business is justified.