Author(s): Salem Abdulla Salem Saeed ALAmeri, Madya Haslinda Musa,
Today, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play an essential role in the economy of nations, in terms of employment, development, and growth. SMEs have achieved significant contributions to the economy of United Arab Emirates (UAE) in recent decades. However, SMEs increasingly face a lot of challenges and competition not only from their peers but also from large firms in the international and domestic market. Moreover, the majority of SMEs rely on traditional management styles, while it is still unclear to what extent project management practices enhance SME business performance. Hence, the aim of this study is examining the relationship between project management practices and business performance of SMEs in UAE from the perspective of Balanced Scorecard Theory (BSC). The analysis in this study is based on quantitative methods and survey process for selected firms under SME category in Dubai. The focus is on private limited companies, working in trading, services, and manufacturing. The respondents are the CEOs and general managers. The result indicates a significant relationship does exist between project management and SME business performance. Thus, SMEs should focus on the important aspects of project management from the perspective of BSC business model, such as project time management, project cost management, project quality management, project communications management to foster the performance of SMEs in the market. However, there is yet to be a further researching on other areas in SMEs and extend the study to investigate more variables in future studies.