New Perspectives in Managing Risks in SMEs

The present study concentrates on risk management in SMEs and provides the hypotheses and reasons behind the non-implementation of this process. This research represents a theoretical contribution in the field of corporate and risk governance of SMEs. It differs from other studies because it does not follow incremental gap-spotting ideals but instead emphasizes assumption-challenging in the construction of research questions, which are formulated by problematizing some dominant assumptions in existing research. To do that, this paper follows the philosophical and epistemological concepts of abduction and pragmatism, elaborated by Charles Peirce. The purpose of this paper is to understand from which point of view it is necessary to restart analysing the topic of risk management in SMEs and to suggest a new perspective that could lead managers and owners of small and medium enterprises to improve their risk attitude. In particular, the research underlines the necessity to concentrate on the human being and his personality and to consider risk management as an integral part of decision-making.