Street-Level Technocracy in UK Small Business Support: Business Links, Personal Business Advisers, and the Small Business Service

10.1068/c0112 ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Mole
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Tacit Knowledge ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Support Service ◽  
Recent Attempt ◽  
Business Service ◽  
Business Policy ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Business Support ◽  
The Uk

The broad focus of this paper is the divergence of implemented policy from intended policy in UK small business support. The Small Business Service (SBS) is the United Kingdom's most recent attempt to provide coherent support for small business. With its structure of local franchisees and multiagency partnerships, the SBS is part of the United Kingdom's Modernising Government agenda, which aims to provide ‘joined-up’ and responsive public services. However, it is not always easy for policymakers to execute new plans in the form in which they were intended. Street-level bureaucracies develop where those who implement complex policies amend them to make them easier to apply in practice. This paper investigates the UK Business Links' Personal Business Adviser (PBA) service. The paper draws on data from a focus group often PBAs and subsequent survey of the 175 PBAs in England and Wales conducted in summer 1998. The experience and tacit knowledge of PBAs provides the expertise for a bespoke support service to small businesses. Business advisers have both technical expertise and closeness to delivery that confers the power to amend small business policy. This tacit knowledge confers powers akin to a ‘street-level technocracy’. Thus, policies that do not carry PBA support, such as targeting, are unlikely to be implemented effectively. A new approach to small business support has been formed from the difficulty in controlling PBAs through performance indicators, which appear to have distorted the intended policy, and the Modernising Government agenda. The new SBS devolves the operation, but not all control, of business advice from the national SBS to local Business Links. PBAs will play a major part in the network mode of governance of the new SBS franchisees.

Ethnic Minority Business Policy in the Era of the Small Business Service

10.1068/c0050 ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monder Ram ◽  
David Smallbone
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Minority Business ◽  
Support Needs ◽  
Socioeconomic Differences ◽  
Business Service ◽  
Business Services ◽  
Business Policy ◽  
Business Support

The advent of the Small Business Service (SBS) has been accompanied by a renewed interest in ethnic minority enterprise. The content, nature, and efficacy of engagement processes with ethnic minority business (EMB) are likely to be important criteria for the granting of local SBS franchises, if the support needs of EMBs are to be successfully identified and responded to in the light of community and socioeconomic differences. This imperative has thrown into sharp relief unarticulated assumptions upon which policy towards EMBs has been, or should be, constituted. A review of these policy questions, and an assessment of the way forward, is long overdue. This is the key aim of the paper. In addressing this task, the authors draw upon a range of recent and ongoing studies of different facets of EMB activity, focusing in particular on the policy dimension. The discussion is divided into three main sections. First, there is an assessment of the support needs of EMBs. A key question is the extent to which such businesses are distinct from the general small firm population; and whether differences can be attributed to other factors, such as size and sector. This issue has implications for the delivery of business services; in particular, should services be delivered within existing ‘mainstream’ business support institutions, or through agencies predicated upon notions of ethnic differentiation? Second, issues and lessons from previous policy initiatives are considered. In particular, the role of specialist agencies, urban regeneration initiatives, and business-led organisations are assessed. After considering issues emerging from extant studies, part three identifies elements for a more coherent policy towards EMBs. Such a policy should include: clearer objectives; placing support EMBs within mainstream provision; an engagement strategy; closer integration between business support and regeneration policies; better access to finance; and more client-focused business support.

scholarly journals Panorama view of Innovation in Brazilian Small Businesses

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Dantas Gonçalves ◽  
Hugo Henrique Roth Cardoso ◽  
Hélio Gomes de Carvalho ◽  
Gustavo Dambiski Gomes de Carvalho ◽  
Rosângela De Fátima Stankowitz
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Monitoring System ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Initial Phase ◽  
Support Service ◽  
Management Model ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Average Value ◽  
Client Relationship ◽  
Business Support

The ALI Program of the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (SEBRAE) has monitored over 150,000 small businesses throughout Brazil over the last few years. Within this setting, this article aims to demonstrate the panorama of innovation and management of Brazilian micro and small businesses (MSBs) that were in the initial phase of the ALI program. The data collected, between the years of 2015 and 2016, allowed to assess the average of points in each of the thirteen dimensions of the Innovation Radar (IR) and the eight dimensions of the Excellence Management Model (EMM). The analysis of the 21 dimensions was performed in a sample of 27,422 small businesses from all over Brazil, which was extracted from the Management and Monitoring System of the ALI - SistemAli Program of Sebrae. Regarding IR results, four dimensions stand out as their means are higher than the others: Brand (3.1), Platform (2.9), Offer (2.7), and Client Relationship (2.7). Besides, the results of the Excellence Management Model (EMM) show that Brazilian MSBs still need to improve, since no dimension evaluated has reached the average value of the scale.

London’s local Olympic legacy

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael B. Duignan
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Local Development ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Business Failure ◽  
Business Policy ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Sustainability ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Small Business Sustainability

PurposeLondon’s Candidature bid projected an irresistible legacy of lasting benefits for host communities and small businesses. Yet, local post-Games perspectives paint a contrasted picture – one of becoming displaced. This paper aims to draw on event legacy, specifically in relation to rising rents, threats to small business sustainability and impact on place development by empirically examining London’s localembryonic legaciesforming across one ex-hosting Olympic community: Central Greenwich.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 43 interviews with local businesses (specifically, small retailers and hospitality businesses), local authorities, London-centric and national project actors and policymakers underpin analysis, supported by official London 2012 archival, documentary and media reports, were conducted to add texture and triangulate primary and secondary data sources.FindingsJuxtaposing ex ante projections vs emerging ex post realities, this paper reveals a local legacy of small business failure fuelled by rising commercial rents and a wider indifference for protecting diverse urban high streets. Embroiled in a struggle to survive, and barely recognised as a key stakeholder and contributor to legacy, small businesses have and continue to become succeeded by a new business demographic in town: monochromatic global and national chains. Typifying the pervasive shift toward clone town spaces, this article argues that corporate colonisation displaces independent businesses, serves to homogenise town centres, dilute place-based cultural offer and simultaneously stunts access to a positive local development legacy. This paper argues that such processes lead to the production of urban blandscapes that may hamper destination competitiveness.Originality/valueExamining event legacy, specifically local legacies forming across ex-host Olympic communities, is a latent, under-researched but vital and critical aspect of scholarship. Most event legacy analysis focuses on longer-term issues for residents, yet little research focuses on both local placed-based development challenges and small business sustainability and survival post-Games. More specifically, little research examines the potential relationship between event-led gentrification, associated rising rents and aforementioned clone town problematic. Revealing and amplifying the idiosyncratic local challenges generated through an in-depth empirically driven triangulation of key local business, policy, governmental and non-governmental perspectives, is a central contribution of this article missing from extant literatures. This paper considers different ways those responsible for event legacy, place managers and developers can combat such aforementioned post-Games challenges.

Evaluating the Prince's Trust's Young People's Business Start-up Programme, 1994–1999

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-81
Author(s):  
Stratis Koutsoukos ◽  
John Shutt ◽  
John Sutherland
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Business Policy ◽  
Start Up ◽  
The Uk

The authors were the principals in the evaluation of the Prince's Trust's Young People's Business Start-up Programme, 1994–1999, as it operated nationally in the UK and in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. In this paper they report the methodologies used in the evaluation and the key findings. They then use their reflections on both the research process and its outcomes to comment on small business policy.

scholarly journals Small Business Policy Index Traction And Movement In Rankings Of States Update: 2000 To 2016

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 259-264
Author(s):  
P. K. Shukla ◽  
Monica P. Shukla
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Rank Correlation ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Term Limits ◽  
Business Growth ◽  
Business Policy ◽  
Main Driver ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activities

Given the volatile economic climate faced in the United States and globally since 2015, there is a desire by politicians in 2016 to increase state economic and business growth.  As small businesses are the main driver of business growth in state economies, focus is placed upon the policy environment of a state to encourage state level growth in entrepreneurial activities aimed at small business creation and survival.The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council an advocacy and research organization dedicated to protecting small business and promoting entrepreneurship has annually prepared a “Small Business Policy Index” that ranks states according to some of the major government-imposed or government-related costs affecting investment, entrepreneurship and business.  This study presents updated results to 2016 from an original 2013 analysis of the rankings of states on the Small Business Policy Index (SBPI) from 2000 to 2016 that focuses upon three categories of states: overall ranking gainer states, those states that are stable in ranking, and overall ranking decliner states, the percentage in each category, and conclusions.  The paper also includes a rank correlation analysis of periods of time to measure the extent of traction and mobility in the SBPI state rankings. As states vary by governor length of years in their governor term and also by term limits or not on governor terms allowed there is an analysis of impact of governor years of term on changes in SBPI ranking and an analysis of impact of governor term limits on changes in SBPI ranking.

STRATEGIC AWARENESS AND THE PROCESS OF INNOVATION

1997 ◽  
Vol 05 (02) ◽  
pp. 193-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW ATHERTON ◽  
PAUL HANNON
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Western Australia ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
External Environment ◽  
Customer Needs ◽  
Innovation Research ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship

Inherent to enterprising behaviour is the exercise of strategic awareness, a process of understanding and learning from the environment in which the entrepreneur and the small business operate. This paper notes that a growing recognition of high levels of change and uncertainty in the environment infers a need to increase small business understanding of what is changing and why. Strategic awareness is an individual and organisational capability, tailored to contextual needs and contingencies, that describes processes for identifying, understanding, interpreting and acting on events and influences. It also contributes to the process of innovation. Research in the UK, and later in Western Australia, identified a customer needs-focused and outwardly-directed approach to innovation that relies on understanding the external environment. This paper concludes by stressing the relationship between strategic awareness and innovation, and suggests that the nature of these processes demands a rethink in how we support and research small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Decision Support Systems in Small Businesses

2011 ◽  
pp. 974-977 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanqing Duan ◽  
Mark Xu
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Small Business ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Decision Support Systems ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Support Systems ◽  
Manufacturing Sector ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Support Needs ◽  
The Uk

Decision support systems (DSSs) are widely used in many organisations (Arslan et al., 2004; Belecheanu et al., 2003; Dey, 2001; Gopalakrishnan et al., 2004; Lau et al., 2001; Puente et al., 2002). However, there is a common tendency to apply experience and techniques gained from large organisations directly to small businesses, without recognising the different decision support needs of the small business. This article aims to address the issues related to the development and the implementation of DSSs in small business firms. Our arguments are based on evidence drawn from a large body of DSS literature and an empirical study conducted by the authors in the UK manufacturing sector.

scholarly journals Effects of public procurement of R&D on the innovation process: evidence from the UK small business research initiative

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kostas Selviaridis
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Small Firms ◽  
Market Failure ◽  
Public Procurement ◽  
Innovation Process ◽  
Business Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Research Initiative ◽  
The Uk

Purpose The study aims to investigate how pre-commercial procurement (PCP) influences the activities, capabilities and behaviours of actors participating in the innovation process. Unlike much of PCP research underpinned by a market failure theoretical framework that evaluates the additionality of innovation inputs and outputs, this paper focusses on the role and capacity of PCP in addressing systemic failures impeding the process of innovation. Design/methodology/approach PCP effects on the innovation process were studied through a qualitative study of the UK small business research initiative (SBRI) programme. Data collection comprised 33 semi-structured interviews with key informants within 30 organisations and analysis of 80-plus secondary data sources. Interviewees included executives of technology-based small businesses, managers within public buying organisations and innovation policymakers and experts. Findings The UK SBRI improves connectivity and instigates research and development (R&D) related interactions and cooperation. Through securing government R&D contracts, small firms access relevant innovation ecosystems, build up their knowledge and capabilities and explore possible routes to market. Public organisations use the SBRI to connect to innovative small firms and access their sets of expertise and novel ideas. They also learn to appreciate the strategic role of procurement. Nonetheless, SBRI-funded small business face commercialisation and innovation adoption challenges because of institutional constraints pertaining to rules, regulations and public-sector norms of conduct. Research limitations/implications The study contributes to existing PCP research by demonstrating innovation process-related effects of PCP policies. It also complements literature on small business-friendly public procurement measures by highlighting the ways through which PCP, rather than commercial procurement procedures, can support the development of small businesses other than just facilitating their access to government (R&D) contracts. Social implications The study identifies several challenge areas that policymakers should address to improve the implementation of the UK SBRI programme. Originality/value The study demonstrates the effects of PCP on the activities, capabilities and behaviours of small businesses and public buying organisations involved in the innovation process.

Consultant–Client Relationships in UK SMEs

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 505-519
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Malone
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Client Relationships ◽  
Client Relationship ◽  
Business Support ◽  
Uk Government ◽  
The Uk

This article reports on research into the role and value of a particular type of business consultant: a UK government-sponsored Personal Business Adviser (PBA). While it is an occupation that is now defunct in the UK, the author argues that its abolition may have been premature. The roles of the PBA are identified and are found to be in line with emerging views of the consultant–client relationship that are more moderate than popular extremes. This finding has implications for consultancy practice: various elements of the PBA job have wider applicability and usefulness for small business support.

Entrepreneurial and Vocational Education and Training

2004 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Mitra ◽  
Harry Matlay
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Longitudinal Research ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Vocational Education And Training ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Uk

The social, economic and political systems of former communist countries have faced considerable changes since the late 1980s. Most countries in Eastern and Central Europe have undergone their own individual brand of transition from a centrally planned, command system to a more or less liberalized, Western-style market economy Many observers agree that in general there is still a great deal to be done to achieve the key goal of economic liberalization, but there is little agreement among academics as to what would constitute an effective and stabilizing transition in the region. In common with contemporary Western beliefs and attitudes, much of the new thinking and hopes for economic regeneration in Eastern and Central Europe have centred on entrepreneurship and small business development. In the early years of transition, the influx of international aid became a stumbling block to the establishment of the kind of support systems that had proved crucial for the survival and growth of small businesses in Western Europe. The demand for entrepreneurial skills and the deficiencies inherent in their new labour markets exposed post-communist economies to external shocks such as those caused by the termination of COMECON agreements and the Gulf War. The longitudinal research on which this paper is based was closely modelled on ongoing work by the authors, which involves an in-depth investigation of the ‘paradox of training’, the difference between attitude and practice, that exists in the small business sector of the UK economy. Following the results of a pilot study undertaken in the UK, the research was extended to include small business sectors across Eastern, Central and Western Europe.

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