Local Partnership for Economic Development: Business Links and the Restructuring of SME Support Networks in the United Kingdom

Hülya Üztel and Steve Martin
Additional contact information
Hülya Üztel: De Montfort University
Steve Martin: University of Warwick

Economic Development Quarterly, 1998, vol. 12, issue 3, 266-278

Abstract: A key feature of British enterprise development policies is the launch in 1992 of a network of business link partnerships to rationalize the local provision of business support services for small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across England. This article examines the ways in which business links are expected to add value to the existing infrastructure and evaluates the effectiveness of the initiative 3 years after its announcement. Despite very significant differences in operations, size of catchment area, and legal structures between business link partnerships, similar problems have emerged. The common set of potentially damaging issues identified can be tackled locally by establishing collaborative-competitive partnerships and by increasing the role of local authorities. Nationally, central government consistently and continuously should use its leverage, resulting from its control over resources, to support the objectives it has set for business links.

Date: 1998
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/089124249801200307 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecdequ:v:12:y:1998:i:3:p:266-278

DOI: 10.1177/089124249801200307

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic Development Quarterly
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().