Tacit knowledge, heuristics, consistency and error signals : How do business advisers diagnose their SME clients?

Purpose – This paper aims to consider the methods used by publicly supported business advisers to assess their client businesses. These business advisers are increasingly required to diagnose the problem or opportunities that face their clients before recommending types of business support. Design/methodology/approach – The study reports semi‐structured interviews with 39 business advisers, from accountants to publicly funded Business Link business advisers. Findings – The study suggests that one of the key to understanding the way in which advisers assess businesses is through congruence, that is does the business reflect the aims and objectives of the management in its operations and processes. Failure to be congruent can deliver error messages to advisers that suggest a problem diagnosis. Practical implications – Business advice is shown to be a process that involves judgemental decision making. In turn, this may enable advisers to focus on solutions to these identified problems. Originality/value – This paper builds on a significant gap in the extant knowledge on the processes of making diagnosis of business problems in a holistic manner.