Modelling Small Business Growth and Profitability

Small Business Economics - This paper develops a simple structural model relating small business performance to firms' market position and the characteristics of their owner-managers. Attention...     

Small Business Growth in the Short Run

This paper examines the determinants of short run employment growth in very small firms in the Services sector. The study shows evidence of non linearities in the growth-size relationship, and it is argued that these non linearities reflect the short run constraints that small firms face in adjusting to demand shocks. The paper also suggests that there are other systematic influences on growth apart from size. The paper draws on survey evidence from the Northern Region of the United Kingdom.     

How Small Business Managers’ Age and Focus on Opportunities Affect Business Growth: A Mediated Moderation Growth Model

Research on business growth has been criticized for methodological weaknesses. We present a mediated moderation growth model as a new methodological approach. We hypothesized that small business managers’ age negatively affects business growth through focus on opportunities. We sampled 201 small business managers and obtained firm performance data over 5 years, resulting in 836 observations. Growth modeling showed systematic differences in firm performance trajectories. These differences could be explained by modeling focus on opportunities as a mediator of the relationship between small business managers’ age and business growth. The study illustrates how mediation models can be tested using growth modeling.     

台风过后看"商机"

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Managing Business Ethics and Opportunity Costs

Economic profits differ from accounting profits. Accounting profits are usually defined as revenues minus costs, and those costs as fixed and variable. Economic profits enlist a third cost, opportunity costs. While these costs are difficult to determine with mathematical precision, they are nonetheless significant, especially for decision making in business. They reflect social costs and benefits, tensions between individual and corporate interests, and all internal and external considerations which enter into decision making in business. It is precisely within opportunity cost decision making that Primeaux and Stieber situate business ethics.     

Antitrust,Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Small Business

The purpose of this article is to discuss a few aspects of antitrust enforcement that are directly related to small businesses. The first point concerns how the antitrust laws work as an economic "charter of freedom" by protecting our economy from the misuse of market power by dominant firms, or from anticompetitive collusion by groups of firms, or from anticompetitive mergers, all of which can blunt the mainspring of our economic success – competitive markets. Second is an expansion on the first theme which focuses on how antitrust enforcement helps preserve two freedoms that I think small businesses care about very much: the freedom to engage in entrepreneurship, and the freedom to innovate. A final discussion involves a few recent cases recently seen at the Antitrust Division that illustrate the many ways in which antitrust enforcement has helped the small business marketplace.     

Small Business and Empirical Perspectives in Business Ethics: Editorial

In this editorial to a collection of papers on ethics in small firms, the case is made for greater use of high quality empirical research on business ethics. Sociological perspectives have much to offer to the field of business ethics that continues to be dominated by normative, moral philosophy. The second contribution of the paper is to argue for a re-orientation away from the large multi-national firm as a benchmark subject of business ethics research. One important point of view to be included is that of the small firm, which remains the dominant organisational form throughout all the OECD countries.     

Segmenting the Business Traveler Based on Emotions,Satisfaction, and Behavioral Intention

As travel is part of their work, business travelers are assumed to be focused on carrying out a work‐related task, rather than feeling emotionally stimulated during their trip. Due to this belief, there is limited research on consumer emotions within this segment of the travel market. However, not only is business travel an experience and therefore it involves emotions, but many business trips have a strong leisure component and business travel decision making is often emotionally charged. This paper segments the business travel market based on emotions, satisfaction, and behavioral intention. Using a sample of 400 managers in small‐ and medium‐sized companies, the study demonstrates that the relationship between emotions and satisfaction is not unidirectional as far as business tourism is concerned. For two of the four segments, the valence of emotions translated into an opposite level of satisfaction/intention. The segments were found to differ in personal and trip‐related variables.     

The Creation and Growth of Small Business Service Firms in Post-Industrial Britain

Since 1980, the United Kingdom has experienced a dramatic growth in firms and employment in information-intensive business services, such as management consultancy and market research. This article reports the results of the first substantial nation-wide investigation into the nature and causes of small professional business service firm growth in Britain, undertaken in 1991. It reveals marked differences in the characteristics, markets and competitive requirements of such firms, compared with small manufacturing firms. The demand for their services comes predominantly from large companies, and is more focussed on financial and other services and government. But small firms are also making increasing use of business services. Specialised expertise, reputation and educational and professional qualifications are essential prerequisites for the establishment of new business service firms. Their success is also being enhanced by increasing use of informal networking, collaborative partnerships, and subcontracting.     

老龄化商业机遇和启示

如何认知老龄化社会的商业机遇？一些领先企业的实践为因应人口结构变化带来了怎样的启示？在为本期专栏的撰文中,英国克兰菲尔德大学DavidGrayson教授就此作出解读并指出,企业“如果能够实现卓有成效的应对,就可以增加其竞争优势和机遇”。David同时是克兰菲尔德大学Doughty企业责任中心主任、社会企业Housing21董事会主席。     

中小企业"跨国"新机遇

中小企业是我国经济生活的主体,不仅在创造就业和吸纳科技成果方面如此,而且在国际合作方面潜力巨大.我国加入WTO,既给中小企业的国际化发展带来挑战,又使中小企业面临许多新的机遇.中小企业如何直面中国融入全球化经济的进程,趋利避害,通过开展跨国投资合作促进发展,是一个不容回避的现实问题.     

Small Firm Growth: Intentions, Implementation and Impediments

Recent evidence suggests that many small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK experience difficulty growing from the start-up phase into larger well established firms. This research uses survey data from UK instruments, printing and software SMEs to explore the attitudes of SME managers towards growth, to identify the strategies they pursue to achieve growth, and to establish the main factors they perceive to be limiting their growth. We find that although most managers profess to value growth and follow expansionary strategies, the main limits on the growth of SMEs are the intensity of competition stemming from the recession, and the inability or unwillingness of management to deal with the increased administrative burden arising from expansion.     

Small Business and Antitrust

The question addressed in this paper is how small business fits into a post-Chicago antitrust agenda. The answer, we will see, relates not to special privileges for the small, but to a vigorous competition policy directed against manifestations of market power.     

Entrepreneurship,Small Business and Public Policy Levers

The author develops a progressively refined framework consisting of four typologies to help understand, explain, and analyze how various public policy levers impact new, small, and entrepreneurial businesses. Dimensions for the typologies include institutions and culture, competition and intended immediate beneficiaries of competition, impediments and supports, and policy objectives and direct/indirect action. Implications emerging from the typologies lead to potential hypotheses that can be subject to further investigation and empirical testing.     

圣诞商机 营销阳谋

身着红衣头戴红帽的白胡子圣诞老人、闪闪发光的圣诞树、驯鹿拉的雪橇、还有”铃儿响叮当”的乐曲……这些西方圣诞节文化的元素在对大多数中国人并不陌生。圣诞节带来的经济效应更是商家必争的大蛋糕。     

External Relationships and the Small Business: A Review of Small Business Alliance and Network Research*

In order to thrive, small businesses are often advised to develop relationships with external organizations that have the potential to assist business development, survival, and growth. A focus on the external relationships of the small business underlines the vital importance of external resources in moving a small business toward increased success and profitability. Covering the period from 1990 to 2002, this paper reviews the small business literature as it relates to the use of these external relationships (such as organizational partnerships, networks, and alliances). In response to both academic and practitioner demand for further research in this area, an exhaustive analysis of the relevant literature was conducted and three “meta” research questions representing the connections within this literature were formed. The resource‐based view of the firm, resource dependency theory, and punctuated equilibrium theory are proposed as useful starting points for exploring these research questions and can give direction for moving forward in this research area.     

促进小微企业成长的营商环境研究

小微企业是促进我国经济发展不可缺少的中坚力量,营商环境是决定区域经济发展的基础和保障。只有在优良的营商环境里,小微企业才能得到健康、稳定的发展。本文通过研究当前辽宁省某市小微企业的营商环境现状以及该市小微企业目前发展面临的一些问题,结合问卷调查结果选取合适的营商环境评价指标对该市小微企业的营商环境进行评价,并基于评价结果对进一步优化营商环境提出政策性建议,以稳定该市目前的营商环境,促进该市小微企业健康成长。