ABSTRACT
Small businesses make an important contribution to the development of the socio-economic and political infrastructure of industrially advanced nations (Matlay, 2000a). Significantly, both in Britain and in the USA, family firms operating in traditional manufacturing and service sectors constitute a large proportion of the small business population as a whole (Church, 1993; Hoy and Verser, 1994; Cromie et al., 1995). Following the surge in academic, practitioner and policy-oriented interest in entrepreneurship and business development in Britain, there now exists an extensive body of general and specific knowledge that outlines and analyses the factors that are most likely to influence economic activity in both family and non-family small businesses (Carter and Jones-Evans, 2000). The current position contrasts sharply with the relative neglect that characterised the small business sector in general and family firms in particular prior to the publication of the findings of the Committee of Inquiry on Small Firms (Bolton Report, 1971). Unfortunately, however, the contemporary body of knowledge appears to focus mainly upon those issues that classical economic and business theory considers important for small firm growth and development: management, marketing, finance, production, and research & development (Goss, 1991; Storey, 1994; Matlay, 1996).
