Editorial

Citation

Harry Matlay, P. (2012), "Editorial", Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 19 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/jsbed.2012.27119daa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Volume 19, Issue 4

In recent years, socio-economic and political events, both in the UK and elsewhere, have led to long-term changes that affected individuals, communities and nations. Entrepreneurship and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) have climbed to the top of political agendas in industrially developed and developing nations as well as countries in transition. Most, if not all, governments acknowledge the important role of entrepreneurs and small business owner/managers in new venture creation, reduction of youth and adult unemployment and contribution to economic output. Furthermore, since 2008, entrepreneurs are perceived as leaders in the struggle for economic recovery and growth. The media has picked up upon the changing role of entrepreneurs and provided examples, biographies and cases to illustrate and justify their newly achieved status. Concepts such as “entrepreneur”, “entrepreneurship”, “entrepreneurial” and “enterprise” have entered the mainstream vocabulary and are used in every day parlance to denote a wide range of meanings and interpretations. Across the world in newspaper articles, radio broadcasts and television reality shows, entrepreneurs feature as heroes, experts and advisors on almost every aspect of private and public life.

For an Editor of a progressive and far-reaching journal on this topic, this period proved remarkable in a number of ways. Supported by a dynamic and knowledgeable Editorial Advisory Board, I aligned the publishing strategy to maintain our long-standing position amongst the leading journals in entrepreneurship and small business development. We continued to publish empirically rigorous articles on a wide variety of established, as well as emergent topics, including some controversial aspects of small business and enterprise development. Similarly, the richness of methods and approaches available to researchers in our field of academic endeavor was evidenced in each issue and volume of the Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development (JSBED). Prophesising the direction and/or the extent of the next stage in the UK or global economy has become something of a social game and populist occupation amongst business observers and newsmakers. I became involved in evaluating, and on occasion critiquing, the many ways in which “the media” set about describing, analysing and predicting the condition of the UK economy, whether it would grow, stagnate or decline over the next quarter period or financial year. To my delight, readers became more engaged with Editorials and provided their own interpretations and predictions on the direction of the UK and global economy. Some were proved wrong, but the majority correctly identified the relative decline in output and the UK economy slipped back into negative figures, and it is now experiencing the longest “double dip recession” since the early 1950s.

This general issue contains ten articles on a wide variety of contemporary issues in small business and enterprise development. In the first article, Federico, Rabetino and Kantis investigate the growth determinants of young firms in 13 countries, located in three distinct geographical regions. The results of their study confirm that the growth determinants of young businesses can vary considerably across regions. It is therefore important that policy makers should take into account a region’s specificity when designing entrepreneurial policies and related initiatives. In the second paper, Shideler and Badasyan examine the relationship between broadband availability and small business growth rates, by employment size and industry, in order to assess its impact upon firms located in Kentucky, USA. It emerges that Broadband availability tends to increase growth in small businesses. Specifically, broadband encourages growth in small manufacturing firms and discourages expansion in financial services. The focus of the third article in this issue is on business growth in post-communist Albania. Xheneti and Bartlett found that the age of the firm, the age, education, qualifications and orientation of the entrepreneur as well as insufficient information and corruption, explain the growth differential amongst small businesses in Albania. In the following article, Liargovas and Skandalis set out to identify the motivation that is responsible for the growth of migrant entrepreneurship in Greece. The authors found that the intention to become an entrepreneur depends largely upon family survival needs, immigrant community ties, personality traits and the market infrastructure of the Greek economy. The focus of the fifth paper is on barriers to finance experienced by female owner/managers of marginal farms in the Punjab region of India. Sandhu, Hussain and Matlay found that the relationship of female owner/mangers with their banks was affected by gender prejudices. In this region, loan rejection rates for female owner/managers were significantly greater than those of their male counterparts.

In the next contribution, Gill and Biger investigate barrier to small business growth in Canada. Emergent results indicate that lack of finance, market challenges and regulatory issues represent important barriers to small business growth in Canada. In addition, a firm’s sales level, indicative of “past success”, has a positive impact upon small business growth. The focus of the seventh article is on sustainability indicators of Italian SMEs. Arena and Azzone offer a standard set of key sustainability indicators that are specifically tailored to SME characteristics. In the eighth paper Barnes, Clear, Dyerson, Harindranath, Harris and Rae investigate the way that small businesses use Web 2.0 Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to work collaboratively with other firms of similar size. The authors highlight and categorise the benefits of using Web 2.0 as lifestyle advantages, internal operational efficiencies, enhanced capabilities, external communications and improved service offerings. In the next article Parry, Jones, Rowley and Kupiec-Teahan explore the success and failure of software technology small firms from a marketing perspective. The authors argue that in order to survive, small software businesses need to achieve a strategic balance between customer orientation and innovativeness. In the final paper in this issue, Williams and Snow examine inhibitors and enablers that SMEs encounter in promoting health in the workplace. External facilitators and the appointment of internal health champions/co-ordinators were identified as key enablers of health promotion programmes in SMEs. Key inhibitors were described as lack of time and resources as well as the longevity of the external support funded by a Government initiative.

In completing and submitting the final issue in this volume, I owe a debt of gratitude to a number of people, too many to mention or identify by name. I would like to extend my thanks to all those individuals who have contributed, directly and indirectly, to the publication of this issue, including authors, referees, advisers, colleagues at Birmingham City University and the production team at Emerald Publishing Group.

Professor Harry MatlayBirmingham City Business School, Birmingham, UK