Differential Gains from Business Link Support and Advice: A Treatment Effects Approach

Abstract

Introduction The provision of advisory support to small firms is almost ubiquitous in OECD countries (OECD, 2002), although publicly supported advisory services are organised in different ways and are justified on slightly different grounds (Mole and Bramley, 2006). Debates are also ongoing concerning the effectiveness of publicly supported advisory services and the precise role that publicly funded advisers should take (Hjalmarrsson and Johansson, 2003; Keogh and Mole, 2005). In England publicly supported advisory services are organised, in the main, through the Business Link (BL) network, which is the focus of this study. BL is England's version of the`onestop-shop' approach to supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The BL model was first outlined in government policy statements in the late 1980s, was finalised in 1992, and has undergone many transformations since (Roper and Hart, 2005). We consider two specific questions: what sort of companies receive advisory

Broader or Deeper? Exploring the Most Effective Intervention Profile for Public Small Business Support

“…Links intervention in England (Bennett, Robson and Bratton;Bennett and Robson, 2004;Robson and Bennett (2008); Mole et al, 2008;). Our major innovation, suggested by resource dependency theory, is to relate intervention outcomes to the intervention strategies adopted by individual BLOs.…”

“…Somewhat surprisingly given the potential value of the answer, this question has been largely ignored in previous evaluations of business support in the UK (PACEC, 1999;Roper and Hart, 2005;Johnson, Webber and Thomas, 2007;Mole et al, 2008). Our approach has two key stages.…”

When moving information online diminishes change: advisory services to SMEs

“…Therefore, the adoption of advice that builds internal capability may offer a greater threat to the organization's survival than the change in an external practice such as marketing. Mole et al (2008) shows that the sources of information about the Business Link offer in England are critical to estimate the probability that a firm receives assistance. There were three popular channels to discover Business Link (BL).…”

Public Business Advice in the Founding Process: An Empirical Evaluation of Subjective and Economic Effects

“…Large-scale initiatives of this type include the Small Business Development Center program in the United States (SBDC), the ALMI in Sweden (Hjalmarsson & Johansson, 2003;Storey, 2003), and the Business Links framework in the United Kingdom (Mole et al, 2008). 2 To date, evidence regarding economic effects of assistance schemes has been ambiguous, leading Davidsson (2002) to conclude that many programs do not work.…”