MICRO AND SMALL ENTERPRISES IN LEBANON

do not belong to a cluster achieve better performance levels. This is due to the nature of clusters inLebanon, which consist of nothing but firms in the same, or similar, line of business. As a result, acompetitive environment arises, restricting profits, and thus performance.Belong to a clusterNo 5.14Yes 4.88Presence in a cluster is usefulNo 5.18Yes 4.68III.17.4 Management OrganizationEnterprises that are organized in departments and those having regular accounting records show betterperformance than others. This is due to the fact that the existence of departments enhances division oflabor, and thus overlapping of tasks. Besides, orderly book-keeping controls resource misallocation,and thus improves efficiency.Enterprise: organised in departmentsNo 5.04Yes 5.12Enterprise: regular accounting recordsNo 4.68Yes 5.55III.17.5 Gender & Marital StatusThe indicators have shown that male entrepreneurs do better than female ones. Many factors could beused to explain this result, one of which is the nature of sectors occupied by men and/or women. Ingeneral, men work in sectors that enjoy high added values and profits, such as construction. Besides,the fact that men do not hold household tasks and responsibilities as much as women, leaves themwith more time to dedicate to work. This means that men can, by far, afford to work for long hours,which in turn boosts a firm’s performance. In the same manner, marital status also affectsperformance of a firm, where single employees contribute to their work more positively than marriedones.Marital statusNever married 5.39Married 4.97GenderMale 5.06Female 4.89III.17.6 Age & Education of the EntrepreneurWhen looking at performance from the age of the entrepreneur point of view, we notice that at first itrises then falls, with the peak being at the age of 30 to 39.As for the educational attainment, performance rises as the years of formal education of theentrepreneur rise. Of course, the highest performance is recorded in firms with entrepreneurs whohave attained at least a bachelor’s degree. Formal vocational or technical training for entrepreneursin fact negatively affect the performance of firms, since these programs are general and thus do notfocus on issues related to the firm’s field of specialization.On the contrary, entrepreneurs who have training apprenticeship experience do benefit their firms,which record better performance levels. This is true because this type of training is specialized andthus can be particularly relevant to the field of the firm.Age of the entrepreneur