When one considers a context in which the government drives institutional and disruptive economic changes, affecting the strategic management of small firms, mainstream literature provides scant information with enough groundedness to explain firms' behaviors. The present research is an in-depth case study, following the assumptions and procedures of Grounded Theory methodology, with the purpose of generating a set of hypothesis to explain strategic management of small building firms, according to what has emerged as relevant for the managers. Primary data were gathered through non-structured interviews with five managers to investigate why and how the firm has adapted to environmental changes in the last 20 years. A total of 595 minutes of interviews were analyzed using ATLAS/ti software. The core category that emerged from data was coping with risk. For the managers, to strategically manage the firm is to deal successfully with a difficult situation that threats firm survival. The developed grounded theory explains under what environmental and internal conditions patterns of coping with risk are used. Existing literature related to strategic management were confronted to the findings; most of them helped to explain the phenomena in some way, but none was able to grasp what was going on in terms of control and of relevance to the actors.
strategic management; turbulent environment; small firms; grounded theory
