This article explores the strategies pursued by small and medium-sized firms to actively sustain growth within declining markets. A critical analysis of relevant growth theories informs the development of a semi-structured interview schedule; findings drawn from 20 case studies indicate that firms adopt a multiple-strategy approach in which they simultaneously pursue an innovative differentiation and product or service-customisation strategy. Following this strategy, it was found that firms make an intentional search for high-margin products, avoid aggressive price competition and maintain tight control of costs. The article demonstrates that an adverse environment does not necessarily inhibit firm growth and that individual firm-specific strategies can be invoked to overcome volatile market conditions.

The effects of preventing a COVID-19 health crisis have had unintended consequences on domestic abuse (DA) victimization. We contribute to the literature on domestic abuse in lockdown by providing insight on how changing patterns of domestic abuse can explain differences in magnitudes reported across studies. We examine the patterns of domestic abuse during the COVID-19 lockdown in Greater London and find that the lockdown changed the nature of reporting and the type of relationship the abuse occurs within. While abuse by current partners as well as family members increased on average by 8.1% and 17.1% respectively over the lockdown period, abuse by ex-partners declined by 11.4%. These findings show that reporting the average change in domestic abuse during lockdown can be misleading when designing a policy response. Moreover, we show that all the increase in domestic abuse calls is driven by third party reporting, particularly evident in areas with high density. This suggests that under reporting is present in the lockdown, particularly in households where the abuse cannot be reported by an outsider. Although these findings pertain to the COVID-19 lockdown, they also highlight the role that victim exposure and proximity has in affecting domestic abuse.

The list of barriers to female representation in management is analogous to the list of barriers to female labor force participation. Accordingly, we examine whether low female labor force participation is the main reason few women hold seats on corporate boards using data from 22 countries over the 2001-2010 period. Using a novel country-level measure of female participation on corporate boards, we show first that the representation of women on boards across countries is actually worse than most surveys suggest. We then examine the extent to which female labor force participation and institutional and country-level characteristics are related to boardroom diversity. We find that labor force participation is significantly related to the representation of women on boards when part-time and unemployed workers are excluded. However, cultural norms, the presence of boardroom quotas and codes promoting gender diversity are also correlated with female representation. This suggests that economic and cultural factors may be important barriers to female career advancement, but that preferences may be less important. While quotas may overcome problems of discrimination, they may be too narrow a policy tool to address other causes of female underrepresentation in management.