If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the factors that influence small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance and particularly, growth. Design/methodology/approach -This paper utilises an original data set of 360 SMEs employing 5-249 people to run logit regression models of employment growth, turnover growth and profitability. The models include characteristics of the businesses, the owner-managers and their strategies. Findings -The results suggest that size and age of enterprise dominate performance and are more important than strategy and the entrepreneurial characteristics of the owner. Having a business plan was also found to be important.Research limitations/implications -The results contribute to the development of theoretical and knowledge bases, as well as offering results that will be of interest to research and policy communities. The results are limited to a single survey, using cross-sectional data. Practical implications -The findings have a bearing on business growth strategy for policy makers. The results suggest that policy measures that promote the take-up of business plans and are targeted at younger, larger-sized businesses may have the greatest impact in terms of helping to facilitate business growth. Originality/value -A novel feature of the models is the incorporation of entrepreneurial traits and whether there were any collaborative joint venture arrangements.

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This article contributes to contemporary debates concerning the impact of regulation on small business performance. Reassessing previous studies, we build our insights on their useful, but partial, approaches. Prior studies treat regulation principally as a static and negative influence, thereby neglecting the full range of regulatory effects on business performance. This study adopts a more nuanced approach, one informed by critical realism, that conceptualises social reality as stratified, and social causality in terms of the actions of human agents situated within particular social-structural contexts. We theorise regulation as a dynamic force, enabling as well as constraining performance, generating contradictory performance effects. Such regulatory effects flow directly from adaptations to regulation, and indirectly via relationships with the wide range of close and distant stakeholders with whom small businesses interact. Future research should examine these contradictory regulatory influences on small business performance.

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

Abstract:In England, publicly supported advisory services for small firms are organised primarily through the Business Link (BL) network. Based on the programme theory underlying this business support services we develop four propositions and test these empirically using data from a new survey of over 3,000 English small firms. Our empirical results provide a broad validation of the programme theory underlying BL assistance for small firms in England during 2003, and more limited support for its effectiveness. More specifically, we find strong support for the value of BL operators maintaining a high profile as a way of boosting take-up. We also find some support for the approach to market segmentation adopted by BL allowing more intensive assistance to be targeted on younger firms and those with limited liability status. In terms of the outcomes of BL support, and allowing for issues of sample selection, we find no significant effects on growth from 'other' assistance but do find positive and significant employment growth effects from intensive assistance. This provides partial support for the programme theory assertion that BL support will lead to improvements in business growth performance and stronger support for the proposition that there would be differential outcomes from intensive and other assistance. The positive employment growth outcomes identified here from intensive assistance, even allowing for sample selection, suggest something of an improvement in the effectiveness of the BL network since the late 1990s.