STRATEGY

EDITOR'S NOTE

This summer, 1996 issue of the Journal of Small Business Strategy reflects our continuing
effort to improve your SBIDA membershiprewards. Publishingthree issues per year will permit
the inclusion of a variety of manuscripts, as well as, case studies for the Small Business
Management Educator.

The articles and case study provided in this issue are intended to help keep our readers aware

of current smallbusiness concerns in export planning, government relations, and work-life needs.

Philip Olson, Newell Gough and Don Bokor examine the critical question of how much
formal pre-export planning is enough and how such efforts can be related to actual export
perfonnance. Their surprising findings suggest that relationship building and positioning, not

formal written plans, contribute most to high export performance success. This success and

failure research question continues with Ron Cook's investigation of smaller lirms'ublic policy
interactions with government. He discovers that the long-term survival of the firm is clearly
determined by state government influence efforts.

In a well researched study, Sarah Jacobson and Harriette McCaul demonstrate the significarx
strategic importance of providing quality work-life program and environment if small business
firms expect to attract and retain well-qualified innovative employees. This issue of employer
focus and environmental turbulence is carried further by Lon Addams, Bill Baker and Brian
Davis as they illustrate how Forbes 200 small business companies utilize mission statements to
preserve core values and stimulate progress.

Preparing financial statements for a number of constituent groups can be both time
consuming and costly. In a carefully documented discussion, Professors Bushong and Cornell

present a very practical approach to reducing their accounting costs.

Although as a matter of editorial policy, case studies have been welcomed for many years,
Drs. Park and Krishnan are the first to submit to our thorough and repeated review process. Their
"Skyline Chili" case will be shown to provide a very real educational example of small business
growth management strategy. Their willingness to allow the use of the case by small business
educators and provide an instructional (I '/~ hour) video is a very encouraging precedent in
sharing educational materials in small business management education.

Finally, with this our first summer issue, I wish to express my appreciation to our review
board members for their extra effort and especially Gary Hazeltine and Dave Hensley for giving

up a good part of their summer vacation.

Joseph F. Singer, Ph.D.
Editor