The success of small business enterprises depends on informal personal networks. As no single actor has all the resources required, they must be acquired from external actors such as suppliers, banks, government agencies, relatives, and friends, either in the form of "bought" or "gratis" resources. The "bought" resources could be obtained with little or no established relationships with other actors; "gratis" resources, on the other hand, could not be obtained without such relationships.In this article, we focus on entrepreneurial resources and gratis (supporting) resources, addressing the following questions: (1) Is there a correlation between being involved in entrepreneurial networks and receiving these resources? (2) Do these resources impact the performance of small enterprises? and (3) Are there interactive effects of the networks of actors and the networks of resources on the business performance? The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between gratis resources (money, information, and nonmaterial support), and network relations; and the relationships between these resources and the performance of small enterprises. It is expected that enterprises with more network relations receive more supporting resources from outside actors and that these resources help improve these firms' performance.

The study reviews the government SME development programs of Sri Lanka in the lens of transaction cost economics in order to understand whether they facilitate the development of a favourable transaction environment for SMEs to govern their transaction cost in an economizing manner. Data were collected from the national development plan, strategic plans of the cabinet ministries, which are responsible for the development of SMEs and other publications related to the government national level SME development programs. The study mainly analyses the activities of each SME development program being currently implemented by the Sri Lankan government, employing qualitative content analysis to understand whether they facilitate to access information and to select appropriate governance mechanism. The study recognized that SME development programs of Sri Lanka do not positively contribute to develop a favourable transaction environment for SMEs. The government SME development programs do not facilitate SMEs to access sufficient and reliable information which lead to make more rational decision, to safeguard transactions from opportunism and to select suitable governance mechanism. SME development programs have neglected in supporting formal governance; instead, they encourage relational governance to some extent only for selected SMEs. As a result, there is a high possibility that SMEs in Sri Lanka have a greater transaction cost which averts the growth of SMEs. Therefore, SME development programs need to focus their attention to develop a favourable transaction environment for SMEs providing reliable information which facilitate to make more rational decisions avoiding opportunism on the one hand and to select better governance structure on the other in order to accelerate the growth of SMEs in Sri Lanka.

The study explores how inter-personal trusts between the Owners of Small Enterprises (OSEs) and their exchange partners affect the mitigation of Transaction Costs (TC) of Small Enterprises (SEs) in Sri Lanka. Data were collected from 373 SEs located in nine Districts representing all Provinces in Sri Lanka, by conducting face to face personal interviews with the respondents. The data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modelling. Results revealed that inter-personal trust between the OSEs and exchange partners has negatively affected firm TC, providing sufficient evidence to conclude that interpersonal trust has a significant impact on mitigating TC of SEs and important ing provid insights for policy makers to ther than o s new direction on focus their strategies conventional approaches to support SEs.

Literature on peacebuilding emphasises the need for stakeholders at all levels of society to be engaged in the peace and reconciliation process for peace to be sustainable. Policy-makers around the globe strategically employ entrepreneurship, particularly self-employment and small enterprises development, to economically empower the communities in post-conflict areas. At the same time, researchers in the fields of entrepreneurship and small enterprise development have identified ‘networking’ as an important factor for the success of entrepreneurs. This paper examines the role played by business linkages among micro-entrepreneurs and its contribution to sustainable peacebuilding, including the development of business and social linkages among entrepreneurs from the North of Sri Lanka.