Demystifying misted mirrors to investigate emerging people issues in SMEs: Implications for strategic change

The concept of "contingent misting" is a missing aspect in Strategy's "organisations design products" and HRM's architectural pairings. This study highlights the structural, cultural, and technical challenges that SME owners and employees are dealing with during new product and service-improvement launches. The results identify a thematic categorization of individual and organizational-level characteristics to help ascertain the complex challenges and impacts of innovating. It is propounded that our understanding and knowledge of mirroring architectures faced by SMEs are deepened as we appreciate the contingent nature of people's competence and adaptation.