If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the factors that influence small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance and particularly, growth. Design/methodology/approach -This paper utilises an original data set of 360 SMEs employing 5-249 people to run logit regression models of employment growth, turnover growth and profitability. The models include characteristics of the businesses, the owner-managers and their strategies. Findings -The results suggest that size and age of enterprise dominate performance and are more important than strategy and the entrepreneurial characteristics of the owner. Having a business plan was also found to be important.Research limitations/implications -The results contribute to the development of theoretical and knowledge bases, as well as offering results that will be of interest to research and policy communities. The results are limited to a single survey, using cross-sectional data. Practical implications -The findings have a bearing on business growth strategy for policy makers. The results suggest that policy measures that promote the take-up of business plans and are targeted at younger, larger-sized businesses may have the greatest impact in terms of helping to facilitate business growth. Originality/value -A novel feature of the models is the incorporation of entrepreneurial traits and whether there were any collaborative joint venture arrangements.

No abstract

This article contributes to contemporary debates concerning the impact of regulation on small business performance. Reassessing previous studies, we build our insights on their useful, but partial, approaches. Prior studies treat regulation principally as a static and negative influence, thereby neglecting the full range of regulatory effects on business performance. This study adopts a more nuanced approach, one informed by critical realism, that conceptualises social reality as stratified, and social causality in terms of the actions of human agents situated within particular social-structural contexts. We theorise regulation as a dynamic force, enabling as well as constraining performance, generating contradictory performance effects. Such regulatory effects flow directly from adaptations to regulation, and indirectly via relationships with the wide range of close and distant stakeholders with whom small businesses interact. Future research should examine these contradictory regulatory influences on small business performance.

Introduction The provision of advisory support to small firms is almost ubiquitous in OECD countries (OECD, 2002), although publicly supported advisory services are organised in different ways and are justified on slightly different grounds (Mole and Bramley, 2006). Debates are also ongoing concerning the effectiveness of publicly supported advisory services and the precise role that publicly funded advisers should take (Hjalmarrsson and Johansson, 2003; Keogh and Mole, 2005). In England publicly supported advisory services are organised, in the main, through the Business Link (BL) network, which is the focus of this study. BL is England's version of the`onestop-shop' approach to supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The BL model was first outlined in government policy statements in the late 1980s, was finalised in 1992, and has undergone many transformations since (Roper and Hart, 2005). We consider two specific questions: what sort of companies receive advisory

Abstract:In England, publicly supported advisory services for small firms are organised primarily through the Business Link (BL) network. Based on the programme theory underlying this business support services we develop four propositions and test these empirically using data from a new survey of over 3,000 English small firms. Our empirical results provide a broad validation of the programme theory underlying BL assistance for small firms in England during 2003, and more limited support for its effectiveness. More specifically, we find strong support for the value of BL operators maintaining a high profile as a way of boosting take-up. We also find some support for the approach to market segmentation adopted by BL allowing more intensive assistance to be targeted on younger firms and those with limited liability status. In terms of the outcomes of BL support, and allowing for issues of sample selection, we find no significant effects on growth from 'other' assistance but do find positive and significant employment growth effects from intensive assistance. This provides partial support for the programme theory assertion that BL support will lead to improvements in business growth performance and stronger support for the proposition that there would be differential outcomes from intensive and other assistance. The positive employment growth outcomes identified here from intensive assistance, even allowing for sample selection, suggest something of an improvement in the effectiveness of the BL network since the late 1990s.

In the UK as in most other advanced economies significant advisory support is offered for start-up firms and SMEs. UK services for SMEs are provided by Business Links which structures its support into non-intensive -one off contacts providing information or adviceand more intensive support involving a diagnostic process and repeated interaction with firms. A key choice for managers of Business Links is resource allocation between these two types of service -i.e. should support be broader or deeper? Drawing on resource dependency theory which combines elements of structure and agency we develop a typology of intervention models for Business Links in the UK reflecting differences in the breadth and depth of the support provided. We then test the impact of these alternative intervention models on client companies using subjective assessments of impact by firms and econometric treatment models allowing for the potential for selection bias. Our analysis suggests two key empirical results. First, Business Links" choice of intervention model has a significant effect on outcomes, and secondly our results are consistent in emphasising the value of depth over breadth. The implication is that intensive assistance should perhaps be available to no more than 7-10 per cent of client firms and where additional resources are available these should be used to deepen the assistance provided rather than extend intensive assistance to a wider group of firms. This suggests that ideas such as mentoring that increase the deepening of advice may generate more positive effects than approaches that broaden advice such as an 'MOT for business'.

A recurring theme in the discussion of policies to stimulate economic recovery in the UK is a desire to unlock the growth potential of the private sector. We are motivated here by a very simple question-"what types of firms create the most jobs in the UK economy?" One popular answer to this question has been High-Growth Firms (HGFs). These firms represent only a small minority-the 'Vital 6%'-of the UK business population yet have a disproportionate impact on job creation and innovation. We re-visit the discussion launched by the 2009 NESTA reports, which identified the 6% figure and, using more recent data, confirm the headline conclusion for job creation: a small number of job creating firms (mostly small firms) are responsible for a significant amount of net job creation in the UK. Adopting our alternative, preferred, analytical approach, which involves tracking the growth performance of cohorts of start-ups, this conclusion still holds. However, we find an even smaller number of job creating firms responsible for a very significant proportion of job creation. We conclude by considering the question-"what are the implications for policy choices?"

This introductory article to the special issue on building the evidence base for small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) growth policy reviews the themes covered by the contributions to the special issue and identifies a number of directions for future research and policy.