IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cbr/cbrwps/wp123.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Market for External Business Advice Services in Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Bennett
  • Paul Robson

Abstract

This paper assesses the extent of use of external business advice by SMEs using new survey evidence from the Cambridge ESRC Centre for Business Research Survey of 1997. It analyses external advice by source and by main field. The chief focus is on the fields of advice sought which are shown to draw mainly from advice on taxation and financial management, computer services, advertising, staff training and development, new technology, staff recruitment and marketing. The main differences between firms in choice of advice source relate to their size and growth history; sector differences are statistically significant only for advice on public relations, new technology and product and service design. Size effects show a generally increasing pattern of use with size, rising from about 23% of respondents for firms of 1-4 employees to 44% for firms of 50-99 employees. After that size, the pattern of use either levels off, or for three main fields of advice it has an inverse 'U' shape. The impact of advice is also assessed. The main impact is 'moderate', highest in fields such as computer services, product and service design, taxation and financial management and staff training and development; and lowest in the fields of advertising, staff recruitment and market research. Impacts are most strongly related to growth history of the company and to business size; sector effects are at best weakly significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Bennett & Paul Robson, 1999. "The Market for External Business Advice Services in Britain," Working Papers wp123, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
  • Handle: RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp123
    Note: PRO-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/cbrwp123/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bryson, John R & Keeble, David & Wood, Peter, 1997. "The Creation and Growth of Small Business Service Firms in Post-industrial Britain," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 345-360, August.
    2. Robert J. Bennett & Paul J. A. Robson, 1999. "The use of external business advice by SMEs in Britain," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 155-180, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. P. J. A. Robson & R. J. Bennett, 2000. "The use and impact of business advice by SMEs in Britain: an empirical assessment using logit and ordered logit models," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(13), pages 1675-1688.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. P. J. A. Robson & R. J. Bennett, 2000. "The use and impact of business advice by SMEs in Britain: an empirical assessment using logit and ordered logit models," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(13), pages 1675-1688.
    2. Samad Sarminah, 2020. "Achieving innovative firm performance through human capital and the effect of social capital," Management & Marketing, Sciendo, vol. 15(2), pages 326-344, June.
    3. Turner, S. & Lourenço, A., 2010. "Competition and Public Service Broadcasting: Stimulating Creativity or servicing Capital?," Working Papers wp408, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    4. Robert A. DESMAN, 2009. "Firm capital: the obscure organizational assets," REVISTA DE MANAGEMENT COMPARAT INTERNATIONAL/REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE MANAGEMENT, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 10(1), pages 19-33, March.
    5. Suma Athreye & David Keeble, 2002. "Sources of Increasing Returns and Regional Innovation in the UK," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(4), pages 345-357.
    6. Francesco Bavagnoli & Giangiacomo Buzzoni & Corrado Mandirola & Ernesto Salinelli, 2022. "Exploring market multiples accuracy for professional practices: sales is the value anchor but profitability and location matter too," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 26(4), pages 1409-1442, December.
    7. Katarzyna Łobacz & Paweł Głodek & Edward Stawasz & Piotr Niedzielski, 2016. "Utilisation of Business Advice in Small Innovative Firms: the Role of Trust and Tacit Knowledge," Entrepreneurial Business and Economics Review, Centre for Strategic and International Entrepreneurship at the Cracow University of Economics., vol. 4(2), pages 117-138.
    8. Dennis Hanlon & Chad Saunders, 2007. "Marshaling Resources to Form Small New Ventures: Toward a More Holistic Understanding of Entrepreneurial Support," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 31(4), pages 619-641, July.
    9. Ma, Darren & Fisher, Richard & Nesbit, Trevor, 2021. "Cloud-based client accounting and small and medium accounting practices: Adoption and impact," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    10. José García-Quevedo & Francisco Mas-Verdú, 2008. "Does only size matter in the use of knowledge intensive services?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 137-146, August.
    11. Nadine Levratto & Denis Carré & Messaoud Zouikri, 2013. "Dynamique des territoires et création d’entreprises : une analyse des départements français en 2008. Local dynamics and firms creation: an analysis of French departments in 2008," EconomiX Working Papers 2013-18, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    12. Kuhn, Kristine M. & Galloway, Tera L. & Collins-Williams, Maureen, 2017. "Simply the best: An exploration of advice that small business owners value," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 8(C), pages 33-40.
    13. Robert J. Bennett & Paul J. A. Robson & William J. A. Bratton, 2001. "The Influence of Location on the Use by SMEs of External Advice and Collaboration," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 38(9), pages 1531-1557, August.
    14. György Ottilia & Madaras Szilárd, 2020. "Factors Influencing SME Outsourcing: Evidence from Romania," Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 8(1), pages 5-18, October.
    15. Francis J. Greene & Kevin F. Mole & David J. Storey, 2004. "Does More Mean Worse? Three Decades of Enterprise Policy in the Tees Valley," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(7), pages 1207-1228, June.
    16. Stoian, Maria-Cristina & Dimitratos, Pavlos & Plakoyiannaki, Emmanuella, 2018. "SME internationalization beyond exporting: A knowledge-based perspective across managers and advisers," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 53(5), pages 768-779.
    17. Robert Bennett & Paul Robson, 1999. "Intensity of Interaction in Suppy of Business Advice and Client Impact: A Comparison of Consultancy, Business Associations and Government Support Initiatives for SMEs," Working Papers wp142, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    18. P. Everaert & G. Sarens & J. Rommel, 2006. "Outsourcing of Accounting Tasks in SMEs: An extended TCE Model," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 06/409, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    19. Patricia Everaert & Gerrit Sarens & Jan Rommel, 2010. "Using Transaction Cost Economics to explain outsourcing of accounting," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 93-112, July.
    20. Kevin O'Connor & Brian Holly & Audrey Clarke, 2012. "A case for incorporating logistics services in urban and regional policy: Some insight from US metropolitan areas," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(2), pages 165-177, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp123. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ruth Newman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.