‘cause’ of actual events or outcomes. The business development strategies adopted by rural SMEs are a product of the conscious decisions of company-owners and managers. A realist framework designed to understand the competitive behaviour of rural manufacturing SMEs, therefore, must begin by identifying the necessary causal powers and liabilities which provide these individuals with the power to act,and also encourage them to behave in particular ways. In doing so it is important to reveal how these necessary properties may accord decision-makers with a particular intentionality or capability to produce the business development strategies they employ.