The purpose of this qualitative interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was to identify what areas of leadership and management have the most influence on small business failure. Ultimately, 25 participants responded to the inquiry and responded to the researcher's questions. From these responses, 10 were chosen at random. The participants, whose responses were analyzed in this study, included six males and four females in eight different areas of business. All 10 respondents derived from the greater northern Virginia area from Occoquan to Manassas. Table 4.1 shows the demographic data of the participants from this study.

Figure 4.1 offers a visual representation of the market segment where the entirety of the respondents’ small businesses operate.

This chapter addresses how findings corresponded to the topic and research questions. In addition, the researcher identifies any outliers or discrepancies that emerged during analysis. Findings of these analyses are noted below for each research question.

Results

Research question 1

How do small business owners perceive the relationship between management and leadership skills and small business success or failure? Three major themes evolved from this question, including communication, cooperation and separation of responsibilities. Table 4.2 shows the distribution of responses by the participants in this study.

Major theme 1. The first major theme was communication. Two of the 10 participants (25 percent) cited communication as the link between management and leadership skills. Both P9 and P6 cited the importance of communication for both managers and leaders. As P9 explained, communication is also a part of cooperation:

P6 also cited communication; however, this participant also explicitly pointed to the fact that managers and leaders must not only have communication skills, but also communicate among each other, as well as with their employees: