Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

Entrepreneurship policy is an emerging area among economic policy developments that is currently not well developed. Policy makers are seeking to increase countries' and regions' entrepreneurial vitality in recognition of the growing evidence that a high level of entrepreneurial activity contributes to economic growth and development. I report the results of a cross-sectional empirical analysis that was conducted to test the contribution of different types of entrepreneurship development programs to new business performance and growth. A sample of seventy-two Spanish footwear entrepreneurs were contacted and surveyed during 2000. Major findings suggest that some of the analyzed public policies significantly favor new business profitability and growth. These results should be taken with care because of the sample size, the profile of the economic sector analyzed, and the restricted geographical location of the new businesses considered in this research.

Using the case of the Prince's Trust, the preeminent UK youth enterprise programme, I investigate how different evaluation methodologies generate radically different evidence of the impact of the programme. The key result is that simpler forms of evaluation tend to provide positive support for this programme, whereas more sophisticated evaluations are not so positive. I discuss the implications of this for the way stakeholders should view evaluations. I urge caution about the claims made for programmes that receive only lighter forms of evaluation.

We investigate the influence of gender, ethnicity, and education in the use of external advice and finance by UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). A conceptual model of ‘discouraged advisees’ was developed as a framework for analysis of the results of a telephone survey of 400 SMEs. We found an association between the use of external advice and the ability to raise bank finance. Furthermore, both men and black and minority ethnic (BME) participants were more likely to use family and friends for advice, whilst women were twice as likely as men to use Business Link. BME business owners were discouraged from using less ‘trusted’ sources, such as Business Link, possibly believing them insufficiently tailored or that they would provide inappropriate advice. Therefore, the findings provide support for our conceptual model of discouraged advisees and have implications for the provision of advice for business owners from BME communities.

Differences exist in the pace of regional development in China between the richer Eastern coastal and poorer Western regions. These differences may result from the relative success of national and regional policy initiatives or more simply the ability of businesses to access finance. High-tech businesses are being encouraged by China's government as a means of rebalancing regional development from the existing physical resource-intensive industries. In this paper we examine the experiences of high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in relation to securing finance, evaluating the experiences at the three stages in their development. The empirical evidence, based on seventy-four face-to-face interviews with owners and senior managers of high-tech SMEs and on nine with bank and government officials, facilitates a comparison of the two study regions, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. The findings indicate significant differences in the availability and nature of financial sources between the two regions. Firms in the more-developed Eastern region experience access to a wider range of funds from both formal and informal sources than their counterparts in the less-developed Western region. Although this was evident at all three stages of the business development cycle, it was more significant during the earlier stages of development. The consequences of such a disparity in financial sources may lead to further exacerbation of the regional differences and hence prove counterproductive in seeking to develop a more balanced strategy of economic development. We conclude by discussing the prospects for improving this present situation through policy initiatives.

The view that excessive regulation constrains small business growth has been a persistent theme within business and policy communities, although recent studies have demonstrated the actual effects of regulation to be relatively modest. A prior small-scale study proposed four reasons why employment legislation does “not damage” small firms. We attempt to assess the robustness of these propositions in a large-scale survey of 16 779 small firms. Results provide empirical support for three propositions. Firstly, perceived dissatisfaction masks actual effects. Secondly, competitive conditions mediate regulatory effects; however, even resource-constrained firms reported few negative effects. Thirdly, informality eases regulatory impact. Results failed to confirm that older laws are ‘routinised’. Length of time as a business owner was found to be more influential than age of regulation, with owners who have been in business for many years having a longer ‘window of exposure’ increasing their likelihood of experiencing negative and positive effects.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are an important part of the world economy but they are thought to be responsible for around 60% of all carbon dioxide emissions and 70% of all pollution. SMEs often have major problems with limited resources, limited knowledge, and limited technical capabilities to deal with their own negative environmental impact. SMEs exhibit widely differing characteristics and commitment where environmental issues are concerned. Yet under these conditions they are all expected to engage in environmental improvement. Interventions that encourage environmental improvement are often polarised between regulation and legislation at one extreme and voluntary environmental agreement at the other. It is clear that a holistic mixture of interventions is necessary to achieve maximum engagement and environmental improvement by all SMEs. In this paper we categorise the different levels of environmental commitment observed in SMEs and develop a selection or ‘toolkit’ of intervention strategies that might be deployed within each category of SME.

In this primary research-based paper I highlight an officially neglected housing supply strategy in Ghana. I discuss the ubiquitous in situ housing strategies employed by households of varying socioeconomic means for meeting housing-space demand and the factors that condition these strategies in the Madina-Adenta area of the rapidly expanding Greater Accra Metropolitan Area. Income and available housing space, household and room occupancy rates, changes in household size, length of residence, tenure, and housing stress were factors in the adoption of housing-space strategies. While 44% of respondents expressed great need for additional housing space, lack of financial resources and the problem of affordability were primary constraints on their ability to employ an incremental housing-space strategy. Access to a good supply of affordable housing credit is thus viewed as a critical housing policy mechanism for enabling in situ housing construction.

Recent academic and policy debate on innovation indicates that there has been some shift from a more traditional systems approach to ecologies and ecosystems. The latter are concepts transferred from the world of biology to the social world in order to explain the evolutionary nature of interrelations between different individuals, their innovative activities, and their environment. We evaluate the concept of knowledge ecology and the theory of innovation ecosystem on two fundamental grounds; firstly, on the grounds of theoretical plausibility and conceptual consistency; secondly, on empirical grounds of the case of public–private interrelations of biotech innovation in Cambridge. The argument is that the concept of knowledge ecology and the theory of innovation ecosystems can lead to problems of reductionism and functionalism. This is due to their development in abstraction from more grounded analysis of historical processes of the social division of labour. Knowledge and innovation need to be looked at in the context of historically founded processes of socioeconomic development.

Attempts to better integrate policy in pursuit of more sustainable development have been made by many countries through the application of ex ante policy appraisal to sectoral policies. The United Kingdom (UK) is often cited as an international leader in this regard, but this is by no means clear. We examine empirically the extent to which the UK Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) system facilitates more integrated, and ultimately sustainable, policies. It appears RIA practice is far from integrated. Many RIAs cover a narrow range of impacts, are conducted late in the policy process, have relatively closed consultation processes, do not explicitly show how trade-offs were made, and use analysis inconsistently, if at all. We argue that providing more resources and improving quality control for RIA may improve integration to only a limited degree. More fundamental barriers to integration are hindered by closed policy communities and institutional processes and therefore may be more difficult to overcome.

We study the determinants of voluntary Internet financial reporting (e-disclosure) by local public administrations. We present hypotheses regarding the relationship between e-disclosure and city size, the issuing of municipal bonds, financial features, Internet visibility, the level of e-government, and diverse political aspects. We also examine the influence of external factors, such as citizens' income level, their educational level, and their sociopolitical commitment. The hypotheses were empirically tested, using a sample of ninety-two Spanish local public administrations. The data support the hypotheses, with different levels of robustness, and show that size, political will, and citizens' income level all affect e-disclosure.