Search results

The purpose of this paper is to theorise, and demonstrate empirically, how regulation generates indirect impacts on small companies that arise through the medium of relationships with stakeholders whose actions affect them. Specifically, the paper explores how relations with stakeholders shape the process of small company adaptation to statutory financial reporting obligations.

The analysis draws principally on qualitative interview data from small company preparers of abbreviated accounts and their accountants, but also uses survey data to demonstrate the prevalence of the account filing and advisory practices reported in interview.

Small companies’ relations with accountants mediate the influence of financial reporting regulation by shaping how firms discover, interpret and adapt to their statutory obligations. Where accountants inform small companies of the option to file abbreviated accounts, or advise them to file such accounts, and clients act on that advice, then relations with accountants mediate the impact of regulation on that business. Accountants typically advise small company clients to file abbreviated accounts as the “default position”, one departed from only in very specific circumstances. Accountants are complicit, therefore, inadvertently or otherwise, in the production of the effects of clients’ filing decisions.

The study expands the conception of how regulation contributes to entrepreneurial action by focusing on the indirect effects arising for small firms via their relations with the stakeholders with whom they interact. Regulatory regimes are a condition of all forms of entrepreneurial action and the ensuing performance outcomes. Regulation therefore exerts a ubiquitous influence on entrepreneurial action that is substantial, pervasive and enduring. Without reference to the necessary enabling functions of regulation, explanations of entrepreneurial processes remain incomplete.

April 21, 1967 Master and servant — Redundancy — Dismissal — Renewal of contract — Employees served with notice — Subsequent request by employer to stay on to finish a job — Refusal by employee having new employment — Offer accepted by other employees for short time — Whether employer “offered to renew” contract — Whether unreasonable refusal — Whether “contract of employment . . . renewed” — Redundancy Payments Act, 1965 (c. 62), ss.2(3), 3(2), 56(1).

Concern has been expressed, over the years, about the financial management strategies adopted by small firms, but very little is known about these practices. Business performance measures are an important element of these financial management strategies. The paper discusses the findings from research carried out in the UK examining the quantitative and qualitative criteria in the measurement of performance in small firms. Semi‐structured interviews were carried out with 20 owner‐managers from both manufacturing and service sectors. Orthodox theory assumes that the objective of the firm is to maximise profits, and it follows that the performance measures advocated are largely based upon this theory. However, research has shown that small firms pursue a range of goals. It was, therefore, not surprising to find that owner‐managers of small firms used a variety of measures and indicators to assess business performance. Profit measures were found to be less important than conventional views suggest. In particular, cash flow indicators were considered to be critical. Other performance measures adopted by owner‐managers include the quality of inputs and outputs and intangible indicators.

Industrial relations researchers have typically directed their attention towards large manufacturing firms to the neglect of the small business. This situation is becoming increasingly difficult to justify particularly for small service sector firms. Between 1980–88 there was a 22% increase in the number of businesses registered for VAT (British Business 1989) which suggests a considerable rise in the number of small firms. About 96% of all firms have less than 20 employees and these firms, it is estimated, account for 36% of total private sector employment in the UK (G. Bannock and Partners Ltd, cited in Dept of Employment 1989). The small firm population is markedly skewed towards services with nearly 90% of all small businesses (1–24 employees) in services of construction (Cur‐ran and Burrows 1988).

Intellectual, as opposed to physical and financial, capital is increasingly regarded as a source of competitive advantage for individuals, enterprises and nations. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are often regarded as important innovators in the economy. It is possible to protect some intellectual capital as property through formal legal rights such as patents or copyright or through contractual agreements. Where small businesses possess such intellectual property, they can secure legal proection. Business owners may also attempt to protect such property using informal methods such as keeping information confidential as “trade secrets”. To explore whether SMEs possess intellectual property and, if so, whether they attempt to protect it, results are presented from a study of SMEs in four sectors where such issues are likely to arise – computer services, design, electronics and mechanical engineering. Overall, small business owners placed most emphasis on informal methods to protect intellectual property. These methods were more familiar, cheaper, less time‐consuming and frequently considered as effective as more formal rights. Under most circumstances, SME owners considered formal registrable rights such as patents less important. Even where business owners adopted formal rights, they were generally reluctant to bring a legal action to obtain redress where they believed that infringements had taken place.

Cross‐national strategy as opposed to country‐by‐country strategy may take place on a regional or on a global basis. This paper examines the European regional office experience of 16 large U.S. firms in terms of (1) the types of responsibilities they handle and why, (2) the problems of removing control and/or duties from country subsidiaries, and (3) the relationship between a regional and global strategy and implementation. The companies' experiences have been quite diverse, thus highlighting multiple opportunities but the need to approach the development of regional operations cautiously. In spite of some problems, the future for European regional management seems bright.

The Annual Report of the Ministry of Health for the year ended March 31st, 1925, has been issued. The section dealing with the administration of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts states that of the 10,516 butter samples analysed during the year, 151 or 1·4 per cent., were reported as adulterated as compared with 1·5 per cent. for 1923. Loading with water is the method of adulteration now most practised, and 74 samples contained water in excess of the maximum of 16 per cent. allowed; 68 contained foreign fats such as margarine, and 9 contained boric acid as a preservative in amounts exceeding 0·5 per cent. One of the samples which contained excess water was also found to contain 0·44 per cent. of washing soda. At Leeds an informal sample of butter was purchased by the police, and as a result of the Public Analyst reporting it to be wholly margarine, they arrested the vendor, a hawker, and upon conviction he was sent to prison for three months for obtaining money under false pretences. Of the 3,456 samples of margarine reported upon, 33, or 1 per cent., were regarded as adulterated; 24 by reason of containing water in excess of the allowed maximum of 16 per cent., 4 for containing excessive amounts of preservative, 4 for containing more than 10 per cent. of butter in contravention of Section 8 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, and one for containing a large percentage of free fatty acids (rancidity). In a case brought before a King's Bench Divisional Court, margarine was sold under an approved fancy name, but the wrapper also bore the words, “Churned with fresh milk.” It was held that these words did not form part of the descriptive name in contravention of Section 8 of the Butter and Margarine Act, 1907, and that the magistrate was not bound to follow the decision given by the Scottish Court in relation to different words.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel conception of embodied entrepreneurial identity. Prior studies conceptualise identity primarily in terms of narrative or discourse. Critiquing the limited focus on linguistic practices, the authors build on the literature by highlighting the role of the non-linguistic. The implications for researching one particular group – entrepreneurs with impairments – are considered.

Entrepreneurial identity is conceptualised as a unique constellation of concerns emergent from the embodied practices of agents committed to new venture creation and management. This new conception draws principally on the embodiment literature, Archer's identity framework and Goffman's ideas on the presentation of self, impression management and stigma.

The entrepreneurial identity literature is underpinned by a number of problematic assumptions that limit understanding of the meaning, formation and influence of identity on action. The body is often an absent presence; it is presupposed, implicit or under-theorised as an influence on identity, producing a disembodied notion of the entrepreneur. Consequently, entrepreneurs are treated as an homogeneous group in terms of the embodied properties and powers, rather than as uniquely embodied individuals. Studies typically assume an able-bodied, as opposed to a differently abled, agent. Entrepreneurs with impairments are largely invisible in the literature as a result.

The approach highlights the role of the body and embodied non-linguistic practices, such as movement, posture, gestures and facial expressions in the formation of identity. Recognising entrepreneurs as differently abled agents, possessing particular embodied properties and powers, is crucial for understanding identity and action.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that freelancing is neglected by researchers as a form of small business activity. It aims to consider whether it is possible and useful for researchers to distinguish freelancers from other types of small business owner.

The paper does this in three ways: first, by conceptualising freelance status; second, by examining the research literature on freelance workers; and, third, by estimating the size of the UK freelance workforce to demonstrate their importance.

The definition proposed permits identification of many types of freelancer hitherto neglected by researchers. Freelancers are a large and growing proportion of the UK business stock and the recent recession has led to a further expansion.

Given the size and distinctiveness of the freelance workforce, researchers might explore the similarities and differences between freelancers and other small business owners with regard to: their motivations for starting and continuing to operate on a freelance basis; experiences of business ownership and management; the heterogeneity of the freelance workforce; and the wider social, economic and political causes and consequences of freelance working.

Mr. Neville Chamberlain, Minister of Health, speaking at a luncheon given by the Provision Trade Section of the London Chamber of Commerce, on November 24th, said that anyone who occupied his office must in doing his duty take whatever steps might seem to be necessary in order to preserve and to maintain the public health. It might be that in the execution of those measures it was necessary to inflict some inconvenience, and even some hardship, upon individual members of the community, but he had always found that those who were so affected, if they could be convinced that the action taken was necessary in the interest of the community, were willing to accept those hardships and to make the sacrifices necessary without complaint. On the other hand, it was his duty to recognize public spirit of that kind, and to do all that was in his power to minimize the hardship, to remove inequalities, and to take away as far as possible the objections that might be made to him by those concerned. As one who was a trader for a good many more years than he had been a politician, he looked upon any measures which might be likely to interfere with trade with a particular desire to make them as easy as possible, because the very last thing they wanted to do today was to reduce employment or to make trade and industry more difficult. The question of the harmfulness of preservatives in food had received a great deal of attention both in this country and in other countries for a good many years, but up to the present this country bad not gone so far in the matter as others. When it was decided to set up a new committee to investigate the question afresh in this country, great care was exercised to constitute the committee of men who were competent by reason of their training and their experience to pronounce authoritatively upon the matters submitted to them. The committee divided preservatives into three groups, arranged in order of harmfulness to health. In the first group they placed formaldehyde and hydrofluoric acid: in the second, boric and salicylic acid: and in the third, benzoic acid and sulphur dioxide. They came to the conclusion that the preservatives in the first two groups should be prohibited altogether, and those in the third group should be permitted only to a limited extent. As a result of discussions that had taken place between the London Chamber of Commerce and the officers of his department, a very large number of concessions were made, but the department felt that in considering the objections they must not lose sight of the main principles which underlaid the committee's report, and in particular they did not see their way to remove the prohibition of boron compounds, which really formed the crux of the difficulties. These compounds were poisonous; they did not add anything to the nourishment of the human body, but they were very readily soluble and were conveyed by the blood stream to every part of the body. Moreover, they were cumulative in effect. They certainly should not lose sight of the fact that during the last forty years, in which the use of boric acid bad been gradually increasing, there had been a very considerable increase in the prevalence of certain digestive disorders. In certain countries the use of these preservatives was absolutely prohibited, and it seemed to him that as Minister of Health he could not go on defending a system which was clearly open to the accusation that it was injuring the health of the people, even if it could not be clearly proved that it could be done without. Another point was that by the use of preservatives it was possible to mask the signs of putrefaction. Time was being allowed traders, importers and manufacturers to make the adjustments in their business and equipment that were necessary on account of the new regulations, and he felt confident that he would have their co‐operation in carrying them to a successful conclusion.