Abstract
The current study is set out to identify factors that determine Small Businesses (SBs) success in Kuwait. SBs success reduces the risk of failure and ensures SBs role in creating job opportunities and achieving sustainable economic development. The article used a questionnaire survey to identify the factors affecting SBs success in Kuwait. Questionnaires were distributed to 300 small businesses in services, industry, retail, and other industries. Owners, managers, managers’ owners and others within the small businesses were requested to express their opinion on a set of internal and external factors expected to determine SBs success in Kuwait. 240 took part in the survey, resulting in 80% usable response rate. Descriptive statistics were used to identify the most important internal and external factors that determine SBs success. Kruskal Wallis test was performed to detect possible variations in the participants’ opinions regarding the importance of the factors due to their characteristics. The results of the analysis revealed that internal factors such as entrepreneur's experience, marketing factors as sales promotion, quality of the product/ service offered by SBs, financial incentives offered by the organization to its personnel and hard work are the most important factors that determine SBs success in Kuwait. The participants further indicated that the academic qualifications of the entrepreneur and academic qualifications of the SBs personnel are the least important factors that impact SBs success. As for the external factors, the participants pointed to business location, attractive legal and regulatory framework and availability of trained employees as the most important external factors to the success of SBs in Kuwait.