To whom should potential new firm founders turn to for advice? This article identifies buzz as a mechanism to transfer the knowledge of who to turn to for advice. Previous work on buzz has linked it with clusters or compared local buzz with international pipelines of information. The interaction...

Changes have been made to systems of publicly funded business advice to implement a 'strategic sounding board' role for business advisers. Previous literature has shown how this role could be modelled in a 'coupole'. The 'coupole' administers a programme but does not deliver it. The shifting of...

Sarason et al. [Sarason, Y., Dean, 1, Dillard, J.F., 2006. Entrepreneurship as the nexus of individual and opportunity: a structuration view. J. Bus. Venturing, 21, 286-305] build upon Shane and Venkataraman's [Shane, S., Venkataraman, S., 2000. The promise of entrepreneurship as a held of...

The provision of advisory support to small firms is almost ubiquitous in OECD countries, although it is organised in different ways and is justified on slightly different grounds. In England publicly supported advisory services are provided through the Business Link (BL) network. Here, we...

In England, publicly supported advice to small firms is organized primarily through the Business Link (BL) network. Using the programme theory underlying this business support, we develop four propositions and test these empirically using data from a new survey of over 3000 English SMEs. We find...

Most advanced economies offer publicly financed advice services to start-up firms and SMEs. In England, local or regional Business Links organisations have provided these services, and divided their support into nonintensive one-off contacts providing information or advice and more intensive...

Three hundred and forty seven public sector employees were surveyed on four measurement occasions to investigate the conceptual distinctiveness of the psychological contract and perceived organizational support (POS) and how they are associated over time. Results support the distinctiveness of...

This article reports the findings of a study, conducted in a UK new media company, that investigated direct and interactive relationships between perceived organizational support (POS), leader—member exchange (LMX), gender, locus of control, and practice of career self-management behaviors....

The relationship between HRM and performance was explored in 366 UK companiesusing objective and subjective performance measures and cross-sectionaland longitudinal data. Using objective measures of performance, greater use ofHRM is associated with lower labour turnover and higher profit per...

The US has experienced a sustained increase in productivity growth since the mid-1990s, particularly in sectors that intensively use information technologies (IT). This has not occurred in Europe. If the US “productivity miracle” is due to a natural advantage of being located in the US then...