Assessment Survey on Management Abilities and Knowledge of Managers of SMEs

An online survey was conducted between December 2010 and January 2011 amongst managers of small and medium enterprises. The database consisted of 35 000 people and they received the test 4 times. Those who replied got a free personalized evaluation of 2–3 pages. 850 tests were filled out and sent back. A part of this research will be presented; first concerning the theoretical background the survey is based on, then the structure of the survey, how it is built up, then the hypothesis and some partial results of the research. The evaluation of the surveys will be shown as well. During the last 15 years the researcher realized that most of the managers are convinced that they are skilled managers and can apply their knowledge well. However, it very often turned out that this was not the case. The purpose of this research was to detect the discrepancy between what managers believe about their management knowledge (assumed management knowledge, AMK) and their true knowledge (real management knowledge, RMK). The first results of the research supported the hypothesis. This will be demonstrated in detail using two sections of the survey.