Interpreting Performance in Small Business Research

For obvious reasons, researchers and policy-makers alike have an interest in assessing the performance of small firms as well as in understanding the factors that contribute to it. Attaining such knowledge is not a trivial undertaking. Researchers have pointed out that the performance of small firms can be difficult to assess (Brush & Vanderwerf, 1992)—e.g., because reliable data cannot be obtained—and also difficult to predict (Cooper, 1995). In this paper I will discuss the equally important and difficult issue of how research results regarding small business performance and its predictors can or should be interpreted. In particular, I will discuss whether commonly used performance indicators like survival vs. non-survival and growth vs. non-growth really reflect ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ performance, as is commonly assumed. Although theory and other researchers’ findings will also be used to some extent, my exposition will rely primarily on experiences and illustrations from a number of research projects I have been directly involved in during the last 20 years. The paper proceeds as follows. I will first question the assumption that business discontinuance—often called ‘failure’—is a ‘bad’ outcome that best should be avoided from the aggregate perspective of the economic system. I will then continue to discuss ‘failure’ from more of a micro-perspective, arguing that most instances of discontinuation of new or emerging firms are not associated with substantial financial losses and do not necessarily represent efforts that should have been avoided. Staying at the micro level I will then turn to the issue of firm growth and the conditions under which growth represents a ‘good’ outcome from the perspective of the firm’s principal stakeholders. I will then return to the aggregate level and discuss the extent to which firm level employment growth translates to net increases of employment in the economy. Finally, the implications of the issues raised in the paper will be restated and discussed in the concluding section of the paper

An Analytical Overview of Labour Market Reforms Across the EU: Making Sense of the Variation

While there has been an increase in interest in employment protection, for example in the literature on labour market insiders and outsiders, there is a lack of cross-country comparative research on reforms of the employment protection legislation and the regulation of temporary work. This article provides such an overview for a wide set of countries including the EU-15 plus five Central and Eastern European countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. It makes two contributions: first, it identifies a set of reform types. One major reform type, two-tier reform, and several minor types: deregulation of temporary employment in countries with low levels of job protection for regular work; reregulation in countries with high levels of temporary employment; reregulation in countries with low regulation of temporary work; and across-the-board concurrent deregulation. Second, the article highlights the difference in regulation that exists between fixed-term contracts concluded inside and outside temporary work agencies (TWAs). In identifying reform types, and the difference in the regulation of fixed-term contracts inside and outside TWAs, the article contributes to our understanding of the variation in labour market regulation and reform. In addition, the article points to different explanations for the reforms, in particular the influence of EC directives.

Presidential Popular Constitutionalism

This Article adds a new dimension to the most important and influential strand of recent constitutional theory: popular or democratic constitutionalism, the investigation into how the U.S. Constitution is interpreted (1) as a set of defining national commitments and practices, not necessarily anchored in the text of the document, and (2) by citizens and elected politicians outside the judiciary. Wide-ranging and groundbreaking scholarship in this area has neglected the role of the President as a popular constitutional interpreter, articulating and revising normative accounts of the nation that interact dynamically with citizens’ constitutional understandings. This Article sets out a “grammar” of presidential popular constitutionalism, lays out the historical development and major transformations in its practice, proposes a set of thematic alternatives for today’s presidential popular constitutionalism, and locates presidential popular constitutionalism within the larger concerns of constitutional theory. In particular, it argues that some of the major political developments of recent decades, such as the “Reagan revolution” and the Clinton-Bush era, can be fully understood only by grasping that they are episodes in presidential popular constitutionalism