Value Based Management in Small and Medium Enterprises

Since the beginning of the 1990s the shareholder value concept is discussed intensively as being amanagement concept especially for listed enterprises. In contrast to the immense relevance of smalland medium enterprises (SME) for the German economy, value orientation of the management ofSMEs is hardly discussed in the literature. In our paper we analyse whether value based management(VBM) and value based management accounting is of importance for SMEs which typicallydo not have access to the capital market. Based on a detailed literature analysis in a first step weexamine internal (such as personal liability of the entrepreneur and the successor problem) and externalimpulses (e.g. Rating and Basel II) for the implementation of VBM in SMEs. In a second stepwe analyse the possibilities of implementing VBM in small and medium enterprises.[...]