This article analyses small firm responses to a major economic downturn, based on empirical investigation in the UK and New Zealand. Despite differences in the timing and depth of the downturn, there is remarkable similarity in the sectoral composition of small enterprises and methods of financing in reported recession-related effects and business performance during 2008-2009. While recognising that the study focused on surviving businesses, in neither country did the downturn have a consistently negative impact on small businesses and in both countries a significant minority of firms surveyed performed well. The study provides much needed evidence on small businesse responses to major economic crisis. Conceptually it demonstrates that although many small firms are vulnerable to changes in circumstances over which they have no control, they show underlying resilience and a high level of adaptability and flexibility. Longitudinal follow-up is necessary to show how the types of adaptive behaviour observed impact on business performance.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have generally been portrayed as failures in relation to environmental sustainability due to their low take-up rates of sustainable business practices. This judgment arises when frameworks and standards that have been developed in, and for, large fi rms are applied to SMEs. Such assessment can provide a misleading impression of the uptake of sustainable business practices, as SMEs do not operate simply as miniature large fi rms. The performance of SMEs should be assessed using benchmarks that fi t the circumstances of small fi rms. Based on interviews with 50 small-business owners in New Zealand, we explore how environmental responsibility is understood and translated into practice. This paper contributes to the emerging stream of research that aims to build a theory of environmental responsibility that is grounded in the experiences of SME ownermanagers, and takes into account the heterogeneity and characteristics of the SME sector.

This article draws on quantitative survey evidence to explore the role of dynamic capabilities in a post-disaster environment, that of Christchurch in New Zealand after the 2010 and 2011 series of major earthquakes. We develop a model to examine the relationship between dynamic capabilities, disaster-related changes to the firm's resource base and its performance. The hypotheses are tested using a sample of 545 small firms that have been affected by the earthquakes. Results highlight the importance of a firm's proactive posture and capability to integrate resources in recognising new opportunities in an environment characterised by high volatility and increased uncertainty. These findings offer important theoretical and practical implications.

Building on a longitudinal dataset of 245 small firms covering the period of the Global Financial Crisis, this study uses, in combination with fuzzy clustering, the N-State Classification and Ranking Belief Simplex (NCaRBS) technique. This technique, able to deal with ambiguous outcome variables, small datasets, incomplete data and relationships that have the potential to be non-linear, is used to explore the relationship between learning and the resilient performance of small firms. Our findings provide a fine-grained picture of the complex relationships between strategic, cognitive and behavioural learning mechanisms and three resilient performance clusterssustained performance, stability, and survivalwhich has implications for theory, as well as practice. By examining learning at the level of the individual owner-manager and also the organisation, we contribute to a better understanding of the role of specific learning mechanisms, a role that is still not well understood.

This study aims to examine the relationships between managerial learning as a facet of knowledge absorption (KA), firm innovation as a facet of knowledge exploitation (KE), and performance of small firms (i.e., firms with fewer than 50 employees). It builds on the knowledge-based view of the firm and the upper echelons theory to describe the effects of KA on KE, and that of KE on firm performance, in the small-firm context. Using survey data of 1441 small firms in New Zealand, the study applies a partial least squares approach to structural equation modelling to test the main hypotheses of the study. The main findings show the positive and significant effects of three types of managerial learning, namely, practice-based, proximal, and distal learning, on innovation and on innovation in firm performance. However, the curvilinear relationships suggest rather that the effects are finite and, potentially, confounded by factors unaccounted for in the models.