“Ethnic matching” in enterprise support: the process in action
Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development
ISSN: 1462-6004
Article publication date: 1 March 1999
Abstract
Should enterprise support for ethnic minority firms be configured along ethnic lines? This question has confronted many officers engaged in the “enterprise industry”, as they grapple with the task of supporting the increasingly significant phenomenon of ethnic minority entrepreneurship. The situation is complicated by the markedly different experiences of ethnic minority groups in business; the apparently low take‐up of existing services; and wider debates in the policy world encouraging the “integration” of business support activities. Policy initiatives to support ethnic minority businesses have had to engage with such issues; but rarely have they been documented. This paper assesses the experience in a Midlands city of AsCo, a Pakistani‐dominated business group that is attempting to “bridge the gap” between South Asians in the retail sector and the providers of business services. The paper is distinctive in a number of respects: The issue of practical enterprise support provision for South Asian firms has rarely been subject to academic scrutiny. Hence, the paper provides a rare case study of this process in action; The design of the initiative was a genuinely collaborative endeavour involving the researchers, policy makers (the local Training and Enterprise Council) and small businesses in AsCo. Indeed, the research was commissioned by the local Training and Enterprise Council (TEC) and AsCo; A methodologically heterogeneous approach is adopted. This involved in‐depth qualitative interviews with 25 member businesses of AsCo (out of a total membership of 80); ten interviews with non‐members; observations of a number of AsCo executive committee meetings; interviews with key TEC officers; and an insider’s view (the second author) of how the research has actually informed TEC policy.
Keywords
Citation
Ram, M., Sanghera, K., Raja Khan, D. and Abbas, T. (1999), "“Ethnic matching” in enterprise support: the process in action", Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 26-36. https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000006670
Publisher
:MCB UP Ltd
Copyright © 1999, MCB UP Limited