Operational capabilities, performance, and strategic alignment in Brazilian micro and small enterprises

摘要

Micro and small enterprises (MSEs) have contributed significantly to economic development in many countries, but they have many challenges. The aim of this study is to identify and evaluate the most important capabilities for the operations strategies used by MSEs in Brazil, to determine whether the degree of importance given to each capability influences the performance of the same, and to ascertain whether companies have strategic alignment. In methodological terms, this is an exploratory and explanatory quantitative study. Questionnaires were distributed to a sample of 1,250 MSEs, and we used multinomial logistic regression for the data analysis. These MSEs consider reliability the most important operational capability. A positive relationship was observed between the importance given to a capability by the firm and the probability of achieving superior performance in this capability relative to its competitors. Moreover, most of the researched firms presented strategic alignment.