Of Those Who Plan : A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Human Capital and Business Planning

Business planning is a popular phenomenon. Yet, literature presents diverging perspectives regarding business planning and the role it fulfills for the individuals leading SMEs. To advance research, we focus on providing evidence regarding factors that determine business planning. We scrutinize how education and different work experience types affect the disposition of an individual to engage in business planning. Using aggregated data on 8,095 individuals leading SMEs from 31 independent data sets we examine our hypotheses. In so doing, we expose a critical difference in the relationship between human capital and the process of planning versus those activities directed at creating a formal business plan outcome. Various implications of our findings for research on business planning are discussed.