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The ongoing success and growth of the Australian economy, like that of many world economies, largely depends on the contribution of small business. Whilst failure rates for small businesses are reportedly high in some industry sectors, the sheer hard work, motivation and entrepreneurship of small-business managers helps to ensure that there is more success than failure. Struggling with the pressure of impending deadlines, caused in part by today’s highly accelerated work environment, small-business managers are in a constant battle with time. Small-business owner-managers, in particular, face the added burdens of keeping the business afloat, pursuing new opportunities and managing their employees. Studying the time-management behaviours of owner-managers is becoming even more important in this highly competitive, global and time-driven environment. Time management is widely acknowledged, particularly in the populist literature, as a positive approach to improving productivity and work-life balance whilst also helping to reduce stress. It is said to do so through practices such as goal-setting, planning, prioritising and scheduling. The literature review in this study revealed that the value and benefits of time management, which are widely acknowledged, have not been supported by rigorous research. In particular, the gap in the literature that is most evident, and the subject of this research, is the application of time management in the context of small business. This study is therefore motivated by three research questions: (1) What are the planning, monitoring, executive and time-assessment behaviours of small-business owner-managers? (2) How do personal and environmental factors influence the time-management behaviours of small-business owner-managers? and (3) What are the productivity, work-life balance and stress-related consequences that result from the adoption of time-management behaviours by small-business owner-managers? To conduct this exploration, a cas

peer-reviewed, The focus of this thesis is to determine if there exists a set of dynamically available dominant, operational, ex-post performance measures for owner managed SMEs (small and medium enterprises). There is a predominance of performance measurement literature that focuses solely on corporate strategy with little or no literature speaking to advance operational performance. This thesis focuses on SMEs and the identification and application of performance measures for the daily operational decision making of an SME owner manager. The majority of the research developments in relation to manufacturing have examined idealised corporate strategy models that bear little relation to the resource constraints and constrained problems that are experienced in SMEs. Few of these developments are inter-changeable among large enterprises and fewer still are suitable for SMEs. The concepts contained in this document were developed through a review of literature and a methodology that involves significant practitioner input through case studies, a survey, a workshop and direct action research within 2 SMEs. SMEs spend the majority of their time dealing with operational concerns revolving around availability of time, money and people. SME owner managers require a method to adequately monitor and control operational concerns before they focus time and money on dealing with strategy. This research focuses on 3 objectives that will contribute to SME management capability; the identification of a set of dominant performance measures, the application of dominant performance measures and the validation of those measures in a more global context. These objectives must be fulfilled in order for the owner manager of an SME to introduce performance measurement in a manner that will promote the opportunity for better management and decisions without the introduction of additional time constraints. The research outlined in this thesis facilitates the identification, application and validation of 6

peer-reviewed, The focus of this thesis is to determine if there exists a set of dynamically available dominant, operational, ex-post performance measures for owner managed SMEs (small and medium enterprises). There is a predominance of performance measurement literature that focuses solely on corporate strategy with little or no literature speaking to advance operational performance. This thesis focuses on SMEs and the identification and application of performance measures for the daily operational decision making of an SME owner manager. The majority of the research developments in relation to manufacturing have examined idealised corporate strategy models that bear little relation to the resource constraints and constrained problems that are experienced in SMEs. Few of these developments are inter-changeable among large enterprises and fewer still are suitable for SMEs. The concepts contained in this document were developed through a review of literature and a methodology that involves significant practitioner input through case studies, a survey, a workshop and direct action research within 2 SMEs. SMEs spend the majority of their time dealing with operational concerns revolving around availability of time, money and people. SME owner managers require a method to adequately monitor and control operational concerns before they focus time and money on dealing with strategy. This research focuses on 3 objectives that will contribute to SME management capability; the identification of a set of dominant performance measures, the application of dominant performance measures and the validation of those measures in a more global context. These objectives must be fulfilled in order for the owner manager of an SME to introduce performance measurement in a manner that will promote the opportunity for better management and decisions without the introduction of additional time constraints. The research outlined in this thesis facilitates the identification, application and validation of 6