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From the Editor
Fry, Fred L
Journal of Small Business Strategy; Fall 2006/Winter 2007; 17, 2; ABI/INFORM Complete
pg. 0_6

From the Editor 

I am excited about this issue of the Journal of Small Business Strategy. For the first time 
in several years, we have an invited article to lead off the issue. We asked Mike Hitt of 
Texas A & M who is a well-known scholar in management to write a paper for us. His 
paper, co-authored by Zhu and Tihanyi, looks at differences among small and medium-
sized enterprises in developing economies. It is a touch longer than most JSBS articles, 
but it is well worth the time to read it. 

The second article, by Grubb, Harris, and MacKenzie, won the JSBS Editor's Choice Best 
Empirical Paper at the 2006 USASBE/SBI conference in Tucson. It should be of high 
interest to entrepreneurship academics as it looks at students' perceptions of an 
entrepreneurial career vs. a career in a large business. Interestingly, they found that the 
choice between a career with an SME and one with an MNC is related to the major chosen 
by the student. 

Miller, Besser, and Riibe studied networking among entrepreneurs in small communities. 
This interesting study found, as we would expect, that there are differences between male and 
female entrepreneurs. But they also found that both genders benefit from networking and that 
there were no differences between benefits gained by male and female entrepreneurs. 

Castillo and Wakefield studied the performance offamily businesses using the Mass Mutual 
Financial Group/Raymond Institute American Family Business Survey database. Their 
findings - both what they found and did not find - are interesting. Perhaps even more 
interesting, as they suggest, are the questions that the research results generate. 

Sudek studied angel investment criteria. An interesting aspect of Sudek's study is that he is 
an actual member of the angel investment group he studied. Thus, there is both a qualitative 
and quantitative dimension to his study. The results of this study show that trustworthiness of 
the entrepreneur, quality of the management team, enthusiasm of the lead entrepreneur, and 
exit opportunities for the angel are the angels' top criteria. 

Finally, Hodges and Kent studied the impact of planning sophistication on small business 
performance. Their methodology differed somewhat from traditional studies of the benefit of 
planning. There results, however, confirmed the conclusions of some earlier studies that 
knowledge of strategic planning is at least somewhat beneficial for firm performance. 

I hope you enjoy the articles. Let me know your comments. 

Fred L. Fry 
Editor