Achieving growth in British SMEs: a critical evaluation of the issues facing small business owners in the pursuit of business growth with recommendations as to how government policy might be informed to support SMEs to achieve their growth objectives.

Topic: Achieving growth in British SMEs: a critical evaluation of the issues facing small business owners in the pursuit of business growth with recommendations as to how government policy might be informed to support SMEs to achieve their growth objectives. Order Description Assessment task: This task is an individual piece of work to be written in the style of an academic journal article. Students are expected to identify some of the issues which face SMEs who wish to grow and consider how government policy might be informed to support SMEs who wish to grow. Your research should draw on the data from the interviews conducted for assignment 1 and be thoroughly supported by and grounded in the academic literature on SMEs. The word count for the report should not exceed 1,500 words. You should stipulate the word count at the end of your work. An allowance of + or – 10% may be made. Assessment criteria: please see marking grid on the following pages Assessment briefing: Support for SMEs, particularly those with growth ambitions is a key priority for government. This assignment is designed to give students the opportunity to consider some of the issues which face small business owners who wish to grow their business and to further consider how government policy might be designed to support SMEs to grow. Another feature of this assignment is to give students some exposure to qualitative data analysis. This will hopefully encourage students to carefully ground their work in the experiences of real life entrepreneurs or small business owners. As always though, this is an academic piece of work, and as such it is expected that students will engage actively with the academic literature in this area. ? Suggested structure ? Introduction ? Literature Review ? Discussion and development of a conceptual framework which identifies issues and suggests solutions ? Conclusions ? Recommendations Some of the issues you may consider are: Access to finance Access to international markets ? Availability of skilled labour ? Management skills ? Acquisition and implementation of technology ? Students should try where appropriate to use the participants own words to illustrate their points. ? The end result should be a clear, reasoned argument for recommendations as to how government policy can best support SME owners to achieve growth. ? Students are encouraged to focus their reading on academic journals and to a lesser extent key texts in the area. The use of internet sources should be minimal and if these are used students are expected to be very discriminating in their use. ? References must conform to the Harvard Referencing convention – where this is not adhered to student’s work may be referred back to the student for correction prior to marking. Sources may include: Anonymous (2012) Boosting the SME sector. Enterprise, 18(4), p.21. Agrebi, M. (2009) Financing SMEs. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. the OECD Observer, (275), p.22. P (2011) Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 3rd ed. London: Palgrave. Bridge, S., O’Neil, K. & Martin, F. (2008) Understanding Enterprise: entrepreneurship and Small Business, 3rd ed. London, Palgrave Carter, S. and Jones-Evans, D. (2000) Enterprise and Small Business, Prentice Hall (EBook on https://lrs.uwl.ac.uk see dawsonera). Cassia, L. & Minola, T. (2012) Hyper-growth of SMEs. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, 18(2), p.179-197. Charbonneau, J. & Menon, H. (2013) A Strategic Approach to SME Export Growth. International Trade Forum, (1), p.32. Foreman-Peck, J. (2012) Effectiveness and efficiency of SME innovation policy. Small Business Economics. Rabetino, R. & Federico, J. (2012) Comparing young SMEs' growth determinants across regions. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 19(4), p.575-588. Burns Stokes, D. & Wilson, N. (2010) Small Business Management and Entrepreneurship.6th ed. Andover: Cengage Learning. Stokes, D., Wilson, N. & Mador, M. (2010) Entrepreneurship. Singapore: Cengage Learning. Storey, D. J. & Greene, F. J. (2010) Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Harlow: Pearson Education.