This paper examines the external advisors used by small businesses to help them solve their problems, focusing on distance between client and advisor. The analysis is based on a new stratified random sample survey of small businesses in manufacturing and services in five representative locations...

This paper provides a large scale analysis of the influence of location on the extent of use and impact of external advice and collaboration on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Britain. The analysis indicates that for private sector advisors (accountants, consultants etc) and...

This paper uses cross-sectional surveys of 1991 and 1997, and a panel survey of firms surviving between 1991 and 1997, to compare the levels of use by SMEs of external business advice. The analysis demonstrates only modest changes over time in aggregate use, and these are not statistically...

This paper seeks to assess advice and information support for firms provided by the Small Business Service (SBS) Business Link. It uses a new survey of client use, satisfaction and experience of service fees. The general level of satisfaction with, and use of, the service is high: 28% of all...

Business Link in Britain is one of the main recent government initiatives to support SMEs in the EU. The paper uses a 1997 survey of SMEs to determine how Business Link use, impact and satisfaction are influenced by firm characteristics, local partnership characteristics, local geographical...

This paper presents disaggregated projections for the UK balance of payments up to 2020. Under conservative assumptions about underlying trends it is projected that the current account deficit will increase from 2% of GDP in 2009 to almost 5% of GDP by the end of the period. Empirical evidence...

This study was inspired by the observation that foreign financial service firms operating in the City of London do not suffer the liability of foreignness to the extent suggested by theory. To examine the reasons for this departure from theory, the study advances a theoretical framework that...

This study seeks to explain why, in some cases, locationally advantageous countries attract foreign firms, who develop dominant competitive positions in the market, rather than facilitate the development of internationally competitive national firms, as theory suggests. Comparative analyses of...

This study uses the comparison between foreign and indigenous firms in localised clusters to gain insights into the behaviour of the former in clusters. In-depth study of 49 foreign and indigenous media firms in the soho district of central london suggests a combination of differences and...

The findings of this study suggest that the competitive advantages of US, UK and French advertising TNCs are only partly shaped by the conditions in their country of origin, and that the impact of home countries weakens as agencies expand their international activity.