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An exploration of the leadership and innovation practices of growth and high growth SMEs, in Wales / GARY WALPOLE

Swansea University Author: GARY WALPOLE

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DOI (Published version): 10.23889/SUthesis.57457

Abstract

This study explores the leadership and innovation practices of growth and high growth Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), in Wales (a region of the UK). Developed economies are becoming dependent upon the SME service and manufacturing base in order to provide high levels of value added, high levels...

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Published: Swansea 2020
Institution: Swansea University
Degree level: Doctoral
Degree name: Ph.D
Supervisor: Rich, Nick L.
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa57457
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last_indexed 2021-07-29T03:17:07Z
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spelling 2021-07-28T17:08:50.9700975 v2 57457 2021-07-27 An exploration of the leadership and innovation practices of growth and high growth SMEs, in Wales 7db429ad3ab475a26f6006cdb182c216 GARY WALPOLE GARY WALPOLE true false 2021-07-27 This study explores the leadership and innovation practices of growth and high growth Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), in Wales (a region of the UK). Developed economies are becoming dependent upon the SME service and manufacturing base in order to provide high levels of value added, high levels of employment and as sources of innovation. Contemporary leadership literature draws extensively from large company concepts of leadership and uses large scale quantitative survey instruments to test theories. However, SMEs are heterogenous in their production processes, innovativeness and productivity levels. The dearth of contemporary SME studies means that the long tail of UK productivity is poorly understood as studies of SMEs have failed to capture the different complex contexts within which leadership is practiced, not least the high growth setting. The researcher determined that theory building would be necessary in order to understand the contextually rich environment of high growth firms. A realist approach, using a cross comparative case study strategy, involving multiple phases of research was duly developed. Data was collected from leaders and their followers and was analysed using data displays (an accepted and legitimate research methodology in the social sciences). The findings of the phased study clearly indicate the importance of "place!#a dimension of leadership behaviour that has been underexplored. The researcher duly developed a model of high growth SME leadership from the empirical research and his initial conceptual model was developed during the structured literature review. The study concludes that SME leadership, whilst sharing some similarities with "big company theories$, is not adequately explained by such previous research. The key aspects of place mediated leadership incorporate leader$s personality traits, an appreciation of place mediators and the application of an idiosyncratic blend of elements of transformational, pragmatic and distributed leadership models. The resultant model is offered for theory testing to other researchers that are eager to understand the leadership and innovation practices of growth and high growth SMEs. E-Thesis Swansea SMEs, Small Businesses, Leadership, innovation, United Kingdom, High Growth Firms, ScaleUps, Small Business Growth 5 7 2020 2020-07-05 10.23889/SUthesis.57457 A selection of third party content is redacted or is partially redacted from this thesis due to copyright restrictions.ORCiD identifier https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3438-8192 COLLEGE NANME COLLEGE CODE Swansea University Rich, Nick L. Doctoral Ph.D Swansea University 2021-07-28T17:08:50.9700975 2021-07-27T12:05:47.7264396 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Management - Business Management GARY WALPOLE 1 57457__20460__ab3e19d2b0cb435da02e7d79abea47e6.pdf Walpole_Gary_L_R_PhD_Thesis_Final_Redacted_Embargoed_31.09.2022.pdf 2021-07-27T12:31:17.8444958 Output 32112098 application/pdf Redacted version - open access true 2022-09-30T00:00:00.0000000 Copyright: The author, Gary L.R. Walpole, 2020. true eng
title An exploration of the leadership and innovation practices of growth and high growth SMEs, in Wales
spellingShingle An exploration of the leadership and innovation practices of growth and high growth SMEs, in Wales
GARY WALPOLE
title_short An exploration of the leadership and innovation practices of growth and high growth SMEs, in Wales
title_full An exploration of the leadership and innovation practices of growth and high growth SMEs, in Wales
title_fullStr An exploration of the leadership and innovation practices of growth and high growth SMEs, in Wales
title_full_unstemmed An exploration of the leadership and innovation practices of growth and high growth SMEs, in Wales
title_sort An exploration of the leadership and innovation practices of growth and high growth SMEs, in Wales
author_id_str_mv 7db429ad3ab475a26f6006cdb182c216
author_id_fullname_str_mv 7db429ad3ab475a26f6006cdb182c216_***_GARY WALPOLE
author GARY WALPOLE
author2 GARY WALPOLE
format E-Thesis
publishDate 2020
institution Swansea University
doi_str_mv 10.23889/SUthesis.57457
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Management - Business Management{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Management - Business Management
document_store_str 1
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description This study explores the leadership and innovation practices of growth and high growth Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), in Wales (a region of the UK). Developed economies are becoming dependent upon the SME service and manufacturing base in order to provide high levels of value added, high levels of employment and as sources of innovation. Contemporary leadership literature draws extensively from large company concepts of leadership and uses large scale quantitative survey instruments to test theories. However, SMEs are heterogenous in their production processes, innovativeness and productivity levels. The dearth of contemporary SME studies means that the long tail of UK productivity is poorly understood as studies of SMEs have failed to capture the different complex contexts within which leadership is practiced, not least the high growth setting. The researcher determined that theory building would be necessary in order to understand the contextually rich environment of high growth firms. A realist approach, using a cross comparative case study strategy, involving multiple phases of research was duly developed. Data was collected from leaders and their followers and was analysed using data displays (an accepted and legitimate research methodology in the social sciences). The findings of the phased study clearly indicate the importance of "place!#a dimension of leadership behaviour that has been underexplored. The researcher duly developed a model of high growth SME leadership from the empirical research and his initial conceptual model was developed during the structured literature review. The study concludes that SME leadership, whilst sharing some similarities with "big company theories$, is not adequately explained by such previous research. The key aspects of place mediated leadership incorporate leader$s personality traits, an appreciation of place mediators and the application of an idiosyncratic blend of elements of transformational, pragmatic and distributed leadership models. The resultant model is offered for theory testing to other researchers that are eager to understand the leadership and innovation practices of growth and high growth SMEs.
published_date 2020-07-05T04:13:13Z
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score 11.017797

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