Based on a number of detailed, in‐depth, cases selected from 30 face‐to‐face company interviews and placed in the context of the literature, this paper will argue that targeted financial support of start‐ups, the notion of “picking winners”, is not a viable alternative to blanket...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to utilise a sample of 384 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who applied for external finance in the Beijing area of China to investigate the characteristics of firms against: the amount of external finance sought, the amount received, and the...