Editorial
There is a considerable body of specialist literature that focuses on various aspects of small business and enterprise development. As one of the veterans of this area of research, I had the privilege to watch it grow, over a relatively short period, from modest beginning into a well-rounded and mature topic of academic endeavour. Nevertheless, there are still a few academic writers and commentators who refer to small business and entrepreneurship research in terms of “budding” and “juvenile”. Interestingly, they are mainly outsiders to our community and tend to work in long-established fields of research, such as management and economics. Most commentators, however, agree that this topic of research is now well-established and that it commands an important position in the wider community of knowledge. For those who might be interested in grounding small business and entrepreneurship in a comparative research perspective, I would suggest a brief internet search, which would quickly prove its extensive growth in both relative and absolute terms. The rest, as they say, is history…
After an absence of almost one year, I have recently attended a number of conferences and workshops on publishing in our area of research and I noticed a substantial increase in both the number and the quality of papers presented. I was pleased to learn that like us, other specialist journals also receive a growing number of quality submissions. Personally, I remain cautious about growing our journal beyond its current size. I view the end of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in the UK with relief and some anxiety. Most of my colleagues and associate feel that there is a need for a better and fairer instrument of individual and institutional research quality assessment. In view of the mixed feelings over this system of research funds allocation and related long-standing criticism, there is an obvious opportunity to improve upon and consolidate the basis on which we assess research and dissemination in the UK. As a “community of knowledge” we must work together to shake off the“Cinderella” status that still clings to research in the small business and entrepreneurship topic. JSBED remains fully committed to facilitate the dissemination of high-quality articles in established areas of research as well as emerging and controversial aspects of small business and enterprise development. The range of articles published in this issue is symptomatic of both the richness of our topic and the commitment of the researchers who persist in their efforts to add to its rapidly expanding volume of specialist knowledge.
In the first article Mosey, Westhead and Lockett explore issues related to the impact of the Medici Fellowship Scheme on attitudinal and resource barriers to the commercialisation of knowledge in five research-intensive universities in the UK. It emerges that the Medici Fellowship Scheme facilitated cultural change within the relevant university departments, contributed to the enhancement of human and social capital amongst participating fellows and encouraged networking between academics and the practitioners involved in the commercialisation process. Interestingly, in universities, priority was given to leading-edge research rather than to the diffusion and commercialisation of knowledge. Furthermore, it appears that embedded cultural attitudes were not markedly changed by participation in this scheme. In the next article McAdam, Keogh, Reid and Mitchell evaluate the longitudinal effect of innovation programmes on the process of innovation in manufacturing SMEs. The authors found that effective development of innovation requires both an understanding of the innovation process in SMEs and the context in which these firms operate. In the third article, Andrew Atherton examines the activities and behaviours of potential entrepreneurs as they move towards starting up their new businesses. He concludes that that there is a period of entrepreneurial gestation prior to the start-up process in which prospective entrepreneurs become aware of possibilities and also consider the feasibility of creating a new business. Thus, prospective entrepreneurs reflect in advance on the possible ramifications and likely outcomes of their decision to start their own enterprises. The focus of the next article is on social entrepreneurship. Shaw and Carter provide a critical overview of this emergent topic by exploring the historical and theoretical antecedents of contemporary not-for-profit practice. Five key themes were identified within which social entrepreneurship could be usefully compared with for-profit practice: the entrepreneurial process, network embeddedness,financial risk, the role of individual in managing and structuring enterprises and creativity/innovation. In the fifth article, Robert Bennett uses a Business Link Services example to provide an expectations-based evaluation of SME advice and consultancy. He found that SMEs typically exhibit expectations ranging from specific service needs to a mixture of softer and quality requirements.
The next three articles converge on a thematic subtopic that relates to financial aspects of SMEs. Richard McMahon provides an in-depth examination of the relationships between ownership structure, business growth and the financial performance of SMEs in Australia. He concludes that there is no statistically-significant relationship between the proportion of equity held by owner/managers and business growth achievements. Furthermore, there is no statistically-significant relationship between the proportion of equity held by owner/managers and the financial performance of the SMEs under scrutiny. Han and Greene investigate the characteristics of business customers and the type of firms that make use of online loan applications. It emerges that online loan behaviour is largely influenced by entrepreneurial characteristics rather than the firm. In addition, factors appertaining to trust between applicants and their primary lenders are also important to the success of online loan applications. Hussain and Matlay examine the financing preferences of owner/managers in small ethnic minority businesses in the UK and their access to formal and informal sources of finance. The authors argue that family and associate networks are important sources of support for both ethnic minority and white owner/managers. Ethnic minority owner/managers appear to prefer less intrusive financing options that allow them to remain fully in control of their businesses.
In the ninth article of this issue, Felicity Kelliher provides an overview of the Irish community pharmacy sector in the context of power relationship theory. She explores the relationship between dispensary software vendors and independent community pharmacists and investigates the influence of dominant partners in terms of technology adoption. An alternative solution to existing power imbalances is offered in the form of a cooperative construct between a team of independent community pharmacists and a software vendor. In the next contribution O’Kane, Papadoukakis and Hunter present a simulation model of the manufacturing processes that take place in a family-owned medium-sized enterprise. The authors demonstrate how simulation can assist in, and contribute to, the implementation of Total Quality Management and change management philosophies in a medium-sized business environment. In the “Point of View”article, Thompson and Downing explore issues relating to the process of matching suitable enablers with prospective entrepreneurs. The authors consider relevant policy implications in the context of the current UK government’s stated priorities. They argue that there is a need to distinguish between enabler attention on a business or an entrepreneurial idea and a focus on the development of the entrepreneur. In this context, it is important to assess whether a directive or non-directive style is more appropriate when attempting to support individuals with entrepreneurial potential.
Many individuals have contributed - directly or indirectly - to this issue. I would like to extend my gratitude to all authors, referees,advisers and to members of the production team at Emerald Group Publishing for their commitment and hard work. In particular I would like to thank Martyn Lawrence for his patience and understanding during last-minute changes and adjustments to this issue: his assistance is much appreciated.
Harry Matlay
