Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remain the backbone of most national economies, yet they face persistent structural vulnerabilities that limit their capacity to scale, innovate, and withstand environmental turbulence. These vulnerabilities are rarely attributable to a single cause; rather, they emerge from intertwined deficiencies in strategy formulation, performance measurement, managerial capability, and advisory support. The contemporary literature has therefore moved away from linear explanations of SME underperformance and toward integrative frameworks that recognize the systemic nature of entrepreneurial and organizational dynamics. Within this intellectual evolution, two major streams have become particularly influential. The first is the scholarship on performance measurement and management systems in SMEs, especially the adaptation of balanced scorecard and key performance indicator frameworks to smaller organizational contexts. The second is the growing body of research on business consulting and advisory models that seek to provide SMEs with structured, theory-informed, and practically implementable support architectures.

The discussion extends these findings by situating them within broader debates on organizational control, learning, and governance in small firms. It is argued that complex consulting models provide a meta-structure through which performance metrics can be interpreted, negotiated, and translated into action, thereby mitigating the well-documented risks of metric fixation and administrative overload. The article concludes by outlining implications for scholars, consultants, and policymakers who seek to design SME support systems that are both analytically rigorous and practically viable.

Small and medium-sized enterprises, business consulting models, performance measurement, balanced scorecard

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