New Zealand Centre for SME Research

In 2003 a team of researchers in the centre started a six-year longitudinal study of New Zealand Small and Medium Enterprises. Phase One of the project was the study “SMEs in NZ: Lifecycles and Transition” (from which several outputs have been and continue to be generated. Phase Two will be conducted in 2004 where Candice Harris will be involved in the following project:

Project Title: Small and medium enterprises in New Zealand: Interactions With the Support Infrastructure.

Objective: This will address one of the questions that will remain unanswered at the end of the L&T project: what are the ways in which firms ‘interact with’ the SME support infrastructure (i.e. government agencies, private sector firms and non-governmental agencies), and what are the features of ‘successful’ interactions.

Methodology: Following the methodology used in the L&T project, each firm will be visited by a single researcher, who will conduct a ‘site investigation’ (a comprehensive method of data collection that addresses issues that relate to the enterprise as well as to the key individual or individuals). This approach (explicitly linking the new project to the Phase One project through the research objectives, the use of matched pairs and the same methodology) will allow for the collection of comparative data and will also allow for the collection of new data on a particular theme that has emerged from the initial study.

Most of the funding for the project has been secured from the Wellington Strategic Research Fund – Massey University. Research fieldwork completed will be conducted April-June 2004 with outputs generated later in the year/2005.