Studies show that despite a concerted attempt by UK policy-makers to portray 'ecoefficiency' measures as cost reducing, most owner-managers of small firms view environmental measures as expensive to undertake. As a result, owner-managers tend to be highly resistant to voluntarily improving their environmental performance. Given that SMEs are such a vast sector of the economy, this perceived discord between profits and environmental protection is clearly a major barrier to the 'greening' of industry. This ESRC-funded study has sought to unearth the underlying motivations for why SME owner-managers in the UK resist or accept the idea that there are business benefits for improving their environmental performance. The findings from 40 in-depth interviews with SME owners in the UK's construction and restaurant sectors and 12 'key informants' from industry and government are presented, followed by a discussion of SME perspectives on the 'business case' for sustainability and its implications for policy-makers.

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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.

The process of managing a small fi rm differs from managing a large fi rm, because small fi rms face distinct forms of risk and organize their human resources differently, often informally (Kotey & Slade, 2005;Storey, 2002). This paper introduces and tests a new variable, self-reported job quality (SRJQ), as a key link in the causal chain between HR practices and outcomes. In comparing small fi rms with large ones, we present three key fi ndings: (1) employee reports of job quality are highest in small fi rms and decrease as fi rm size increases; (2) in workplaces owned by large fi rms, job quality is highest in the smallest workplaces; and (3) workers in small workplaces owned by large fi rms report lower job quality than workers in comparable sized workplaces owned by small fi rms. Our fi ndings are partially explained by how formally HR practices are implemented. We show that formality increases with fi rm size and workplace size. Importantly, evidence suggests that employing an HR professional (a key indicator of HR formality) lowers SRJQ in single-site SMEs. Implications for small business owners, HR professionals in large and small fi rms, and policy makers are discussed.

This paper seeks to stimulate debate on the agendas, methodologies and methods used in the field of small business and entrepreneurship. The paper raises questions regarding the research agendas pursued and provides some pointers for the direction of future research. Integral to this is the argument that there is a need to reflect on the condition of small‐business research and to raise the quality of research by employing robust research methods. This may involve questioning the role of small firms and entrepreneurship in society rather than merely advocating them and the policy measures taken when supporting and/or developing the small business sector. The dominance of specific viewpoints, the methodologies used in small business studies, and the consequences of these in relation to the development of a coherent scientific field of small business studies are also discussed. Examples of research activity are discussed to illustrate these themes. Overall, the paper argues that entrepreneurship and small business is a lucrative area for research. However, if the field of inquiry is to flourish, it needs to be approached from a more critical perspective, instead of merely accepting normative, or even strongly ideologically driven, standpoints now dominant in so many studies. This has implications for research agendas, methodologies and ultimately research methods training.

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JAMES CURRAN IS MIDLAND BANK Professor of Small Business Studies, Robin Jarvis is Reader in Accounting and Finance, Robert A. Blackburn is Midland Bank Research Fellow and senior lecturer and Sharon Black was formerly research officer, all at the Kingston Business School, Kingston U-niversity, Surrey, England. This paper examines critically the methodological strategies of previous researchers investigating small business owner networks and networking and goes on to suggest an alternative strategy based on a thematic approach and a critical incident analysis. This approach is applied to a sample of 350 owner managers. Initial findin-gs from the original interviews with the 350 owners are followed by findings from the 45 critical incident interviews. Panel sessions, with some respondents and other interested parties, were used to corroborate the findings and interpretations generated from the i -iterview data. The conclusions question the extent of networking between the simall business owner and others within the wider economic environment and suggests these ielations hiave been overstated previously.