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.

No abstract

Managerial and policy implications. Management should establish computerised accounting systems that are sufficiently flexible to meet their developing information needs.. Those advising small companies on financial management should be wary of using a large company model to prescribe best practice, but rather to encourage practices to develop on a contingency basis.. Members of the accounting profession responsible for the auditing and/or preparation of accounts should encourage practices based on management's need for financial information.. Qualitative research should be conducted to gain insights into how and when different types of financial information are used and what further information could be provided that would be useful to management.

Concern has been expressed, over the years, about the ®nancial management strategies adopted by small ®rms, but very little is known about these practices. Business performance measures are an important element of these ®nancial management strategies. The paper discusses the ®ndings from research carried out in the UK examining the quantitative and qualitative criteria in the measurement of performance in small ®rms. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 20 owner-managers from both manufacturing and service sectors.Orthodox theory assumes that the objective of the ®rm is to maximise pro®ts, and it follows that the performance measures advocated are largely based upon this theory. However, research has shown that small ®rms pursue a range of goals. It was, therefore, not surprising to ®nd that ownermanagers of small ®rms used a variety of measures and indicators to assess business performance. Pro®t measures were found to be less important than conventional views suggest. In particular, cash¯ow indicators were considered to be critical. Other performance measures adopted by owner-managers include the quality of inputs and outputs and intangible indicators. MANAGERIAL AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS. Management should introduce ®nancial management models based on their particular needs rather than those based on socalled`best practice', which in the main derive from large companies. Many exam-ples of best practice are likely to be inappropriate to small ®rms, which often have a range of diering objectives and operating characteristics. . Performance measures should be varied enough to capture the range of goals of owner-managers of small ®rms. . Measuring business performance solely by ®nancial indicators will not capture the complexity of the range of objective of the owner-manager. . Cash and cash-¯ow indicators are crucial in assessing how well the business is doing and is particularly critical to ensuring the survival of the ®rm. . Owner-managers should keep a check on performance measures employed by external parties (such as lenders) to assess the health of the ®rm.

PurposeThe aims of the paper are three‐fold: first, to analyse how small and micro firms finance themselves; second, to investigate what their financing preferences are; and third, to explore their opinions on how they evaluate the financing sources and the various obstacles they face in accessing those sources.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses a sample of Greek small and micro firms, which cover 99.6 per cent of the total number of firms operating in Greece. The data are derived from the answers in a structured questionnaire.FindingsThe main conclusions are as follows. Regarding equity financing, firms rely heavily on their own funds and would not raise new equity from sources outside the family; thus, there is a reluctance to use new outside equity (venture capital, business angels, etc.). Regarding debt financing, firms denoted that they would use more debt, specifically long‐term debt, than they currently do. Thus, there are limitations in accessing long‐term debt financing. Regarding grant financing, micro and small firms should be better informed and encouraged more to participate in state grants and co‐financed programs; thus, there is an informational gap in grant financing.Originality/valueThe paper uses a sample of Greek micro and small firms and a survey methodology to tackle the lack of quantitative published data for most small firms in Greece. It incorporates distinct sources of funds that are very important for small firms (family funds, grants provided by the state and micro‐loans). It investigates preferences, not just practices.