A change in the importance of mortality factors throughout the life cycle stages of small businesses

The aim of this paper is to describe the mortality factors and the change in the importance of these factors throughout the life cycle stages of small businesses. Research on mortality of small businesses ignores the characteristics of small businesses and the life cycle stage they are at the time of closure. A systematic mapping study was conducted to explore the literature on mortality factors in small businesses and understand the state of the art of the theme. The relevance of mortality factors distributed among three categories: owner-manager, business and environment have changed throughout businesses life cycle stages. Such variation states one of the main life cycle theory assumptions that a factor can have a beneficial influence during one specific stage and a negative influence during another stage. The attention given to the variation of importance of mortality factors during businesses life cycles results in implications for all those concerned in strengthening small businesses.