The main aim of this study is to investigate the key challenges affecting small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Simultaneously, it would also discuss the background of those challenges, as well as recognizing the challenges that could be controlled by SMEs, and to propose a model. The paper is exploratory in nature and stands on secondary sources. The data are inclusive of scholarly and publicly sources. The data analysis is built on critical content analysis and theming process. Three figures are presented to demonstrate the methodology of study, the suggested model, and the linkage between the findings of study with the corresponding proposed constructs. The study recognizes six internal and external challenges that affect the SMEs. Resources management, entrepreneurial behavior, SMEs capabilities, problem solving and decision making, as well as leadership are the internal factors. The complexity of the business environment and social influence are external factors. It is found that SMEs organizational behavior is the principal domain behind these challenges. The study suggests practitioners should follow specific behavioral strategies such as entrepreneurial management (EM), transformational leadership (TL), strategic improvisation (SI), and dynamic capabilities (DCs) to overcome the different challenges and scale up their positions. As for the promoters, stimulating entrepreneurship among people and revising the training courses should be conducted to cope with market needs.

Entrepreneurship is widely regarded the catalyst of business prosperity and economies development. Accordingly, a high level of entrepreneurial management practices should lead to a high level of success, and vice versa. The entrepreneurial management construct (EM), conceptualized by Stevenson (1983) and operationalized by Brown et al. (2001), is centered on the business opportunity and meant to measure both the individuals' and firms-level entrepreneurial behavior with regards to dealing with business opportunity in six dimensions; namely: growth orientation (GO), strategic orientation (SO), resource orientation (RO), management structure (MS), reward philosophy (RP), and entrepreneurial culture (EC). This study aims to verify the level of entrepreneurial management embraced by the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the kingdom of Bahrain. Based on the descriptive statistical analysis of 360 self-administered questionnaires, this study suggests that the vast majority of SMEs in Bahrain could be viewed as entrepreneurial. The dimensional investigations reveal that the SMEs propensity towards entrepreneurial management is at its most in the GO, followed by MS, then EC and RP, while it is slightly lesser in the SO and RO dimensions. This study contributes to the literature, empirically, by proving that the EM practices are applicable to any firm, regardless of its age, size, business activity, or ownership structure.