Claire Massey
'Applying the knowledge base: Building better support structures for small enterprises'
Thursday 22 October, time: 09.00-09.45, location: Conference hall.
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Despite being the dominant business form for many centuries, in recent times - and most particularly during the 20thcentury - the small firm was overshadowed by the notion of the large firm, particularly the multinational corporation. For several decades these increasingly global firms captured the public imagination and absorbed the attention of governments around the world and became the focus of serious study. Research projects that are now household names to students around the world (the Hawthorn studies for example), were mainly situated in large firms – which appeared to be the way of the future, with the small firm seen as being an inevitable casualty of economic progress.
But this situation was to change, and a series of events; the oil shocks of the 1970s, the publication of Schumacher’s widely read book Small is beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered, and the establishment of the Great Britain Committee of Inquiry on Small Firms (usually known as the Bolton Committee after its Chairman, John Bolton), created an environment which was conducive to a resurgence of interest in small (or medium) sized firms – the SME.
Some of this interest was stimulated by the potential for these firms to contribute to economic growth, while there was also an interest in the social cohesion that small firms can help create. The result was a period of intense interest in small firms as a legitimate form of enterprise. At the same time, there was an increasing focus on the individuals who drive these firms - the ‘owner-managers’) as they are usually described in European research) or entrepreneurs (the term favoured in the United States).
The outcome of the last four decades is an explosion of research on small firms, and an increasingly coherent body of knowledge on the particular characteristics of the firms that can be said to make up the SME sector and the distinctive approaches to their operation by those who found and manage them. Drawing upon extensive empirical work with small firms in New Zealand, this paper brings together the main threads of this knowledge base, focusing on the systems and methods that can be best used to support the SME sector.
Contact: Claire Massey, Professor of Enterprise Development & Director, New Zealand Centre for SME Research, Massey University, Private Box 756, Wellington, New Zealand, T 64 4 8015799, e-mail: C.L.Massey@massey.ac.nz
CV
▪ Professor, Director of New Zealand Centre for SME Research, HOD, Dept. of Management
Massey University
▪ Ph.D. in Management, Massey University (2000)
Since 2007 Professor of Enterprise Development, HOD, Department of Management, Massey University, Director New Zealand Centre for SME Research.
2006-2007 Professor of Enterprise Development, HOD, Department of Management & Enterprise Development, Massey University (Wellington), Acting HOD, Department of Management (Jan 2007 to Oct 2007), Director, New Zealand Centre for SME Research.
2000-2006 Director, New Zealand Centre for SME Research, Massey University (Wellington).
1993-2000 Lecturer, Department of Management, Massey University (Palmerston North).
Claire Massey’s research is about the social and economic contributions that small and medium enterprises make to society. Her specialty is ‘enterprise development’ (ED) & focusing on understanding ED interventions; the processes that enable ED to take place at an organisational level; & the systems for effective economy-wide ED.
Claire Massey has since 2002 been elected as member of the international board for the Small Enterprise Association of Australia and New Zealand (Vice President 2004-2006, President 2006 to 2007).
Selected publications in English
Lewis, K., Massey, C., Ashby, M., Coetzer, A., & Harris, C. (2007). Small business assistance: New Zealand owner-managers make their assessment. Journal of Small Business & Enterprise Development, 14(4), 551-566.
Lewis, K., Massey, C., & Harris, C. (2007). Learning by doing: six dimensions of complexity in researching SMEs. Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, 4(2), 151-163.
Coetzer, A., Harris, C., Lewis, K., Cameron, A., Massey, C. (2007). Human resource management practices in selected New Zealand small and medium enterprises. International Journal of Organisational Behaviour, 12(1), 17-32.
Jurado, T., Massey, C., & Walker, R. (2007). Representations of excellence in New Zealand micro-enterprise. International Journal of Business Innovation & Research, 1(3), 267-280.
Massey, C. (2005). The size and significance of the small business sector. In C. Massey (ed), Entrepreneurship & small business management in New Zealand (pp. 3-16). Auckland, New Zealand: Pearson Education New Zealand Ltd.
Massey, C. (2004). Employee practices in New Zealand SMEs. Employee Relations, 26(1), 94-105.