This paper is concerned with small business development in rural areas and the policy approaches currently being used to support them. The key question underlying the paper is the extent to which small businesses located in rural areas have distinctive support needs, associated with the...

The authors investigate the relative roles of a number of influences on workplace health and safety in small firms and, more specifically, the adoption of compliance-related improvement measures. From findings drawn from a survey of over a thousand British small enterprises, marked variations in...

This paper investigates whether or not there is evidence of market failure in the provision of bank finance to Scottish SMEs. The key question is whether SMEs have been experiencing difficulties because of the unsuitability of the business case they were putting to the banks or because of...

This paper presents recent research assessing the impact of the financial crisis on young and established technology-based small firms (TBSFs) and considers whether their ability to contribute to economic growth is being affected by ongoing problems in obtaining external finance. It reports on...

To date, little research has focused on female entrepreneurship in the context of transitioning countries. This paper compares from an institutional perspective two countries at different stages in the process of transformation. Lithuania followed a rapid transitional path leading to European...

The paper reviews the current discussion on institutional change and institutional entrepreneurship. Specifically, it focuses on institutional change agents, by which we mean individuals whose actions can be shown to have contributed to formal or informal institutional change, to the benefit of...

Using a longitudinal database, this paper compares the employment performance over the 1979-90 period of mature SMEs in three contrasting geographical environments—i.e. London, outer metropolitan locations in the South East, and remote rural locations in northern England. The performance...

China’s rapid growth in recent decades can be attributed in large part to the emergence of a vibrant private sector, which now accounts for around three quarters of the economy. Despite government pronouncements in support of private small businesses, public policy and institutions to support...