**1. Introduction**

Decision making is one of the basic management activities. At the top level of businesses there are strategic decisions that unlike tactical and operational decision making is more complicated, more complex and the consequences of strategic decisions are long‐term character.

Small corporations are an important part of the economy in developed countries. According to the National Agency for Development of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in OECD countries represent more than 95% of the total number of all enterprises, while their share in the creation of added value is around 50% and the share of employment is within the average of about 60–70%.

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2017 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The economic crisis has strongly affected the economy in this area, and thousands of small corporations declared bankruptcy. Most of them are dependent on a limited number of cus‐ tomers or subscribers and sales further decline. It is likely that in the form in which they are working now, they will not be able to survive the economic pressure of competitors.

It was found that effective strategic decision making significantly increases performance, suc‐ cess, and survival of small and very small corporations. Insight into the process of strategic decision‐making small corporations is therefore important professional experience and litera‐ ture. It presents a topic that received insufficient attention in comparison with the process of strategic decision making in large enterprises.

The following reasons brought us to explore the strategic decision‐making process in small corporations:


Research on strategic decision making was and mostly is focused on large businesses. There, we found a big research gap in the way the small corporations make their strategic decisions considering their difficult source limitation. We focused on small enterprises and mainly on micro‐enterprises.

The pilot survey was conducted in 2012 on a sample of 70 small businesses. Subsequently, in 2015–2016, we have carried out major research project VEGA no.: 1/0109/17—"Innovative approaches in the management of their impact on the competitiveness and success of business in conditions in the Globalizing Economy."

Our aim is to find answers to the following questions: Is the strategic decision making part of their management? Which areas are covered by the strategic decisions of micro‐ and small enterprises? What models of the strategic decision making are dominant in these companies? What affects the profile of this process? What are the mechanisms used by managers of small corporations who make strategic decisions?
