Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of the relationship between the manager and growth in small firms, through a review of earlier research.

Design/methodology/approach

A review of articles published during the last 25 years is carried out in order to answer the question: How does the top manager influence growth in small firms?

Findings

Three key relationships are identified: between growth and, respectively, managerial traits and characteristics, managerial intentions, and managerial behavior or roles. The diverse findings in the literature are contradictory and give a paradoxical picture of the impact of the manager. A deeper analysis of the results from the review, supplemented with leadership theory, yields a better understanding of small-firm growth with a special focus on the behavior of the manager.

Research limitations/implications

This paper problematizes the complexity in managing small-firm growth, and can be further empirically validated by using multiple methods including qualitative ones such as observational studies.

Practical implications

The findings have a bearing on education and policy implications. If a behavior can be identified that promotes small firms' growth, education and policy implications can be developed in line with these results.

Originality/value

In small firms there seems to be a general consensus that managers do influence the performance of small firms, but so far there has not been a systematic review of earlier empirical research, that is done in this paper. From this review, a more complete picture of how managers influence growth in small firms is presented.