The use and impact of external advice by small firms

This thesis explores the extent of use and the impact of a full range of the providers of external advice in Scotland and northern England using a very large scale postal survey of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), with over 1300 replies. This is the first large scale survey of Scotland which includes a comprehensive set of the sources of external advice. Chapter 1 provides the reader with the general overview of the contribution to theory and concepts and in indication of the structure which is followed. Chapters 2 and 3 introduce the theoretical debates and the geography of business support and the previous analyses of previous business advice providers. Chapter 4 presents the methodology and the data sets which have been used. In chapter 5 the levels of use and impact of private and public sector sources are reported. In chapter 6 a set of supplementary questions are used to gauge the levels of use and clients’ assessments of Business Link (BL)/Small Business Service (SBS) and Business Shop (BS)/Small Business Gateway (SBG) which are the key mechanisms for the delivery of public sector business support. Chapter 7 assesses the central government support schemes such as Export Credit Guarantees. The geography of business advice has remained a comparatively under researched theme and this thesis in chapters 8 and 9 seeks to explore the relationship between the location of the firms and how this influences the levels of use and the impact of business advice.