Scale for measurement of the success of micro and small enterprises of Santa Catarina by item response theory

Abstract

This study aims to validate items of the survey developed by Ortigara (2006) and construct a scale to measure the success of micro and small enterprises (SME) of the State of Santa Catarina using the Graded Response Model of Samejima (ANDRADE; TAVARES; VALLE, 2000). The original instrument consists of thirty items about the causes of success / failure of businesses that have been filled by a 7-point Likert scale by the qualifier "irrelevant" to "very important". The sample consisted of 329 activity micro and small business and 39 extinct companies. The respondents were the owners of the companies were asked to respond the instrument considering two different moments: at the beginning of the business and at present. The software Multilog was used to calibrate items and subsequent estimation of the scores. The results show that all items were calibrated and the scores point other evidences that allow infer about the business success of SME. Linear transformation was made in the estimates of the index of SME business success with mean and standard deviation set at 70 and 10 respectively in order to improve understanding by the results. The items were analyzed and arranged in a scale with six levels, defined by 19 anchor items, with each presented in three dimensions that characterize the index of SME business success (Entrepreneur, Internal Factors and External Factors).