Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The research programme had five objectives: to draw upon and develop recent theoretical contributions to the study of industrial organisation, firm behaviour and organisational change in a way which enabled them to be applied to the study of small firm creation, growth and development; to employ this framework to analyse empirically the determinants and constraints upon small business birth, growth and survival in a range of industries including hi-tech sectors, knitwear, printing and publishing; to employ the theoretical framework to analyse empirically the role of interfirm relationships and industrial districts in small firm creation, growth and development; to provide a detailed empirical analysis of the role of acquisition activity in the growth of small firms; to use the results of the theoretical and empirical research programme to evaluate policy proposals at a local, national and European level on a range of issues affecting the creation and growth of small firms. The methodology included econometric and case study analysis. Individual projects were conducted against a background analysis derived from a national postal survey of 2000 businesses and official statistics on the small business sector. The aim of the study was to create a longitudinal panel of small to medium enterprise (SME) data relating to a wide range of non-financial and attitudinal characteristics, and also including a limited number of financial variables not normally available in modified company accounts, from the national postal survey mentioned above. The initial survey was conducted in 1991 (covering 1987-1990). A first recall survey of the same population took place in 1993, and a second in 1995. The initial deposit of this study included only the results of the first survey. For the second edition of February 2002, the data and documentation were updated to include the 1993 and 1995 recall surveys.

Main Topics:

This dataset consists of two data files, sbe.por and cbr321.por. The first file, sbe.por, contains the responses to a 1991 survey of over 2000 independent small and medium-sized businesses in the manufacturing and business services sectors in England, Scotland and Wales. The questionnaire covered the years 1987-1990, and included topics on the role of independent small businesses, where respondents were asked their views on the roles of such businesses in economic activity and the challenges involved in running them; general characteristics of the business, where the questions were related to the history, ownership and character of the business as well as questions about the chief executive/partner/sole proprietor; commercial activity and competitive situation where the respondent was asked about the key characteristics of the business in terms of its suppliers, customers and competitive situation. Other sections covered: workforce and training (employment figures, recruiting difficulties and whether training was provided); factors affecting expansion and efficiency (designed to help with the understanding of principal factors which affect the rate of development of the business and the use of and access to business advice); technology and innovation (questions on the role of technological change and innovation in the development of the business); acquisition activity (intended to explore the role of acquisition and takeovers in the development of the business; and finance (designed to obtain some basic financial information about the profitability and sources of finance available to the business and the cost of borrowings. The second file, cbr321.por, contains data from 893 firms from the 1991 survey, along with their responses to two recall surveys conducted in 1993 and 1995. To be included in this data file, firms had to respond to the surveys in both 1991 and 1995. The two files should not be used together as one partially duplicates the other. The first recall survey (1993) consisted of a very brief questionnaire, which focused on finance characteristics but also included a few brief questions on general business characteristics and total employment. The second recall survey (1995) had a particular emphasis on innovation and innovation-related expenditure, but also included questions on the same topics as the first survey. A brief faxed questionnaire was sent to those firms unable to complete the full 1995 questionnaire, which included innovation and finance questions.

One-stage stratified or systematic random sample

Postal survey

faxed short questionnaire sent to those respondents who could not complete the full 1995 questionnaire.